Some College baseball

[TheSportsGuy]

A couple of random college baseball pics I took over the last week or so. My school in white of course! :)

The runner was safe at home.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff215/NCStateDude/IMG_7110edited2.jpg

Unfortunately he could not get to the ball quick enough. I was debating on whether or not to crop it more. I did not want to because I wanted to give the sense of more space to make it look like he was flying.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff215/NCStateDude/IMG_6959edited2.jpg

Error on the shortstop. He had absolutely no idea where the ball was. :(
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff215/NCStateDude/IMG_8081edited2.jpg

Any way, more later if I am not lazy. :D

(edit, C&C welcome.)
(another edit, the sun was very unkind. There was no clouds, just harsh light and shadow....blah)

[Aaagogo]

i'm assuming from the exif data that you're using the 100-400?

the actions in 1 and 2 are nice, with pretty good timing, but they're a little OOF. sometimes it's due to the player's uniform, it's hard for the AF to lock on some parts of any uniform color because there's nothing for the AF to contrast it against.

[TheSportsGuy]

i'm assuming from the exif data that you're using the 100-400?

the actions in 1 and 2 are nice, with pretty good timing, but they're a little OOF. sometimes it's due to the player's uniform, it's hard for the AF to lock on some parts of any uniform color because there's nothing for the AF to contrast it against.

Yeah, the 100-400 is the lens.

I have noticed that the pics blown up become a little OOF for some reason. They look fine when they come up when you click the image in Adobe Bridge. I'm not sure why they are acting up.

[Aaagogo]

in all honesty, I won't really worry about it unless it's like really OOF

I've been doing a lot of research, like reading magazines, sports annuals of teams and everything else, it seems that as long as it's not like completely OOF, it's acceptable, of course, that's with like the rest of the elements in place like, action, face, etc...

but then of course, it would be nice to get to get razor sharp images, but it would not be something that I would sweat over.

[AdamLewis]

They dont really look out of focus to me. It just looks like they havent been sharpened very much. How much sharpening do you apply to the images?
After opening them up in PS and sharpening them, they look just fine.

Unfortunately everyone seems to just expect razor sharp pictures 100% of the time anymore. Well....at least everyone around here ;)

[TheSportsGuy]

^there was a little sharpening done.

I'm paranoid when I sharpen because I do not over sharpen. Anyone have any tips on how much sharpening I should do? I have CS4

[bobbyz]

Sharpess wise #1 and #3 are good but in #2, AF seems to be off to me. My 100-400L used to do same when used on 30d.

[1shot4u]

Its all about timing...Nice shots.

[Big K]

I think it is that lens. It is notoriously soft. I have used three different ones over the years and this is a very good example of what I would consistently see. While they can be improved in PS it is still not the same as results from one of the better Canon lenses.

On a positive note, these are very good action captures.