LL Playoff & I think the lens is fixed....

Today was the playoffs, and I think the sigma 120-300 is finally fixed. I got none of the weird failure to focus after zooming, so whatever problems with it with my pics will be user error (me). I'm definitely still in the process of learning this lens.

Unexpectedly, my son's team won tonight, so we advance to the next level, game is tuesday I think. There was a home run for our team, more on that later.

I tried getting closer, any luck:

#1 The windup:

Shots look good Pat and congrats to your son! My only nitpick is #1, I would crop just a little higher. I usually don't cut people off at the joints.

They all look good if I had a nitpick it would be that the horizon is off on #2.

Good Job

Bill S wrote in post #5683147
They all look good if I had a nitpick it would be that the horizon is off on #2.

Good Job

I have seen references to that (horizon being off). What does that mean exactly? That the sky isn't straight?

Thanks in advance for tipping me off on that.

Pat

Good stuff and memories. One thing you may find helpful though on days like this is to bump you EC - 1/2 to 2/3. This will help bring back your highlights and improve contrast. Others wise, nicely done.

To your question... they eye really picks up on stuff that it knows should be vertical or horizontal. In the case of the one image, the light polls in the back are leaning to the left. Anytime you have strong lines in a image, the brain is going to want to correct it and will cause confusion in the image. Just use the rotate tool to correct this and the image will feel a lot more natural.

Cheers.

Croasdail wrote in post #5683193
Good stuff and memories. One thing you may find helpful though on days like this is to bump you EC - 1/2 to 2/3. This will help bring back your highlights and improve contrast. Others wise, nicely done.

To your question... they eye really picks up on stuff that it knows should be vertical or horizontal. In the case of the one image, the light polls in the back are leaning to the left. Anytime you have strong lines in a image, the brain is going to want to correct it and will cause confusion in the image. Just use the rotate tool to correct this and the image will feel a lot more natural.

Cheers.

Thanks for enlightening me about the horizon. Now I was under the impression that with light/-white uniforms, I should be increasing EC to help with under the cap shadows on the face (and that does carry a risk of blowing out highlights - so I do this conservatively as possible). Your instruction to make it a negative - won't this hurt exposure if done on the negative side - remember I was shooting a game after 5 PM, not in the middle of the day and on white uniforms? During this game, I started with a 2/3 EC + value, but brought it down to 1/3 out of fear of blowing the highlights.

Pat

lower the exposure... then adjust the curves to fix darks shadows. You cant fix the entire scene with one adjustment

Here is my take...

Looking good. Where was the AF point in #1?

eigga wrote in post #5683939
lower the exposure... then adjust the curves to fix darks shadows. You cant fix the entire scene with one adjustment

Here is my take...

I didnt know they were wearing pinkish shimmery shirts. Thats pretty neat! [/sarcasm]

Let the uniforms clip if you have to. Id rather have a blown uniform and a good face than a properly exposed uniform and a shadowy face ( or a shimmery hideous thing you have to recover like the one above... )

They look good sharpness-wise. Id sharpen them some though from now on. All digital files need sharpening in post.

I thought they were pink LR added saturation and contrast automatically... didnt even notice that...

The original is not bad ... I prefer the latter minus the pink.

Adam -

Thanks for the input. I had thought that conventional methodology was the use EC + for under the caps with light uniforms. When Mark suggested the opposite, it confused me. I know that this may be an area where not everyone agrees. Cigga, thanks for your input as well. I do happen to agree with Adam that if I can exposure properly for the face to begin with using a EC+ setting for light uniforms (and conversely and - EC for dark uniforms - while in AV mode), it probably is for the best (insofar as my own work is concerned), because to me the facial expression is the most important factor in capturing the moment and story. If I'm in situation where I cannot have my cake and eat it too, I would prefer preserving the face with minimal PP if I can. Of course, if I ever learn fast enough at manual, all of this would be moot.

Henceforth, I shall post images with regular PP. I only had posted with nothing, because I was asking specific questions about the performance of the 120-300. I might post only 1 more set without PP, because I would like to test the 120-300 with an extender at least once, and see what that performance shows.

Bobby - shot #1 I'm almost positive I aimed the center point somewhere on the mid back, or perhaps right under the shoulder area, as his chest was not available to me in that moment in time. If it wound up elsewhere, that was not my intent.

Pat

Thanks Pat.

pigtailpat wrote in post #5683886
Thanks for enlightening me about the horizon. Now I was under the impression that with light/-white uniforms, I should be increasing EC to help with under the cap shadows on the face (and that does carry a risk of blowing out highlights - so I do this conservatively as possible). Your instruction to make it a negative - won't this hurt exposure if done on the negative side - remember I was shooting a game after 5 PM, not in the middle of the day and on white uniforms? During this game, I started with a 2/3 EC + value, but brought it down to 1/3 out of fear of blowing the highlights.


Pat

The fact that you were shooting these at 5 pm and the resulting lack contrast shows that you really are over exposing too much unless you were shooting into the sun. There is no reason to go this flat just to get the faces here... you shouldn't have to make that choice. If you were actually at +.3 then you probably would have been safe with 0 added. When you over expose, you loose color and contrast as well. It's not just about blown highlights.

I do agree that posting test shots without PP done is a good idea. But sharpness is made up of a lot of factors. Two of those are contrast and color. The more saturated an image - all things being equal - the sharper it will look. It's that illusive pop. Shot right, you can get it with minimal to no PP. Any test shot for sharpness shot over exposed will look artificially soft because in doing so you take away contrast. A very neutral image of a low contrast subject makes "sharp" hard to create. The image technically may be very sharp when measured, but visually will look soft.

Mark -

Thank you. You given me alot to think about and I understand exactly what you are saying.

Its really very difficult to achieve an image that has exactly the right exposure, not too much and not too little. There are so many variables, and shooting just 1 year is not enough experience at all to understand what works right, under what conditions. It's a process I am still working at.

Pat

The other thing Pat is that the web really is a poor medium for some of this stuff because you may have it spot on for your monitor, yet on another, it will be off. In an ideal world, we would all be using calibrated monitors that use the same color gamut. But we don't... hence you get some of the comments like above. I have myself stopped putting too much weight into online reviews of my stuff with the exception of those that deal with composition on artistic values. Those transcend the issues with different monitors. Anyway...

On the system I am on right now.... these look great. Your more than just on your way now.... you're doing a great job.