Sports critique...

I shot these pics at the Mets game last week and would love any comments or suggestions to improve. I only recently got back into photography and picked up a 40D and EF 100-400L. I know it would be ideal to have a faster lens but until I save up a bit this is what I have. Any suggestions or techniques you think I can use to freeze the action better, reduce noise, etc., would be appreciated.

http://public.fotki.co​m/RobNYC/metsvsrockies​shea/

I only looked at the thumbnails and the first thing that jumped out at me was that they were all shot in landscape orientation. If you look at sports photos you'd see that most of them are shot in portrait/vertical orientation.

Rob-- good start. You need to get comfortable with your equipment and get some creative juices flowing.

Thanks Scott.

Fedka... you are probably right I didn't think about that. But on the other hand, the 100-400 was hard to maneuver around the heads of the people in front of me and with the bar I had on my right. So even if I wanted to, I probably couldn't do alot of manuevering. I did try it once, and I need to get more proficeint in the use of my monopod and ball head because when I tried it, it seemed that it wouldn't support the weight of the 100-400 (but is rated as though it will).

ISO Speed: 1000, ISO Speed: 1250 -- from what I remember from tv, it was pretty light out there on the field. Your adding too much ISO to your images.

Well isn't the idea to freeze the action (prevent any blur) to shoot with as high of a shutter speed as possible? The lens biggest aperture is 4 or 4.5 and at that aperture I could only get around 1/200 sometimes (somehwere in that general range). I am under the impression that if possible, with sports shots, you want to stay around 1/500 if you can. So I was going for the fastest shutter speed I could get under the conditions.

Am I wrong or is there another way to compensate?

Who says you have to shoot with the biggest aperture? Remember, the size of the f-stop should be in relation to the amount of ambient light available. If you're subjects are well lit, you can F/11 or F/22 and get a huge jump in shutter speed.

If you're inside, shooting a wedding, conference, whatever that has very low ambient light but still need to pump up your shutter speed (because people are waving their arms everywhere) than you can compensate with higher ISO as a crutch to boost your shutter speed.

I can't think of any sport that isn't well lit, even indoor or at night. So try the smaller aperture. You actually end up with a higher IQ than full open.