Baseball - first time

[bcap]

Hello All

Had my first photo shoot for baseball tonight. Let me know any suggestions/tips/C&C you guys have. Thanks a lot

www.memoriesinmotionnf.ca/baseball

I have lots more if anyone wants to check them out. I realize they are all a little warm - something I couldn't pick up on my viewfinder when it was all sunny out today.

Thanks for the C&C.

Bryan

[bcap]

are they really that bad?

[Sittingshooter]

Hey Bryan, no there not that bad at all. I have noticed that patience is definately a virtue,when waiting to hear comments on your photos. As far as the shots themselves, you have some that capture the real action of the game ( softball, not baseball LOL )and some that seem so so (we are all guilty of that). What camera and lens(es) were you using ? As with most of us, your backgrounds could use some cleanining up. In several shots that would otherwise be real winners, the background kills it...my 2 cents..." No I am not a professional photographer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last Night "

[bcap]

Thanks SittingShooter. Patience - I agree that it is important, I was just concerned that they were bad due to the fact that there were 85 views and no comments

Anyway - I'm using a Digital Rebel XT and a Sigma 70-200 f2.8. Could you explain about the background issue? How can I fix this?

Thanks so much

Bryan

[deezeljuice]

I shoot a lot of baseball, from little league to high school to the majors. It's difficult to shoot for several reasons. Getting the best vantage point being the main one, distracting backgrounds,etc.. You've got some good shots. Try some tighter crops and isolate the subjects. I've even had good luck with some special effects like zoom blur. Just experiment and try new things. You're doing well.

[DaveL]

I owned a rebel XT and 70-200 sigma and don't
think I got the clarity you did. Other than to keep
shooting, you're on the right track...

[Little Fish]

With so many threads going, I think that most folks want to open a thread and see a few select photos posted with a link to more photos for those who are interested. Also, since the link goes to 20+ photos, it is hard to comment on so many while trying to go from viewing window to posting window.

That being said, I did look at the photos and they are a start but you can do better--which describes all of us when we shoot something for the first time. The situation was difficult with the setting sun, distracting backgrounds at every angle, etc., and that didn't help matters. As for the photos, it seems like there is a general problem with cropping--in some photos the point of interest only takes up about 20% of the photo and the other 80% is a distraction. In others, such as the group on the pitcher's mound and a couple of batting photos, I don't like the feet getting chopped out of the photo. I think the solution in most cases is to shoot tighter to begin with but not so tight that you cut out things that should be in the photo.

[Sledhed]

I agree with the cropping, some are cropped to tight and some are not tight enough. They also look underexposed, when I'm shooting into the sun I usually open up about a stop. What mode were you shooting in? What kind of metering were you using? WB also looks off.

This was shot into a harsh late afternoon sun.

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Chris

That picture looks amazing - how did you get such a nice WB for it? What was your shooting position?

As far as the zoom/20% and 80% - I was zoomed right in at 200mm for the majority of them so I couldn't get much tighter.

I was using Av mode - Aperture set to 2.8 the majority of the time.

The metering mode was the top one - the one with the square and a circle in the middle - I actually don't really understand the 3 metering modes - any chance someone could point me in the right direction?

Also - I have the images hosted on my server but for some reason when I went to link them from here, they didn't show up - which is why I posted the link.

Any tips/suggestions are GREATLY appreciated. Thanks so much

Bryan

[Sledhed]

Bryan - Welcome to the forum. That was shot in raw so the WB set in PS. I was just beyond 1st when I shot it with my 70-200 f4 and everything I shoot is in manual mode. I played with one of yur pictures and I removed the color cast, with your permission I'll post the image.

[bcap]

Thanks Sledhed for the advice - you have my permission, post away!

Appreciate it!

[Sledhed]

Here you go Bryan. Basically I just used curves to fix the color.

Original



Edited and cropped

[bcap]

Wow. Looks much better. See I haven't done any PP or anything to any of them yet - what you guys see is right out of the camera. I obviously would do some PP in PS if I were to sell them - I just wanted to get a feel as to how I was doing.

Sledhed, do you always shoot raw for action shots?

[Sledhed]

Everything I shoot is in RAW mode.

[bcap]

Do you not find you have issues with the number of continuous shots you can take?

For some reason I am not convinced that RAW is the best for action photography - usually, do you do much editing to the photos? Don't you want a quick turnaround?

Again, I am new to all of this so some pointers would be GREATLY appreciated

Thanks again

Bryan