Softball season is upon us...

[chemisti]

Haven't been around much - in the middle of a home remodeling job...

But, I took time out to go watch and shoot my daughter's softball team. Love this sport. Some of my favs from the weekend:

[MT Stringer]

Nice series, Jeff. I like the last one. Good timing, faces, ball and action. That about sums it up!

[tukaniray]

I like the catcher actions shots.

Very nice shooting.

Are these shot with your 70-300?

-Ray-

[chemisti]

The home plate shots were shot with an old manual Focus Tokina 400mm F5.6 SD that I bought on Ebay about 3 or 4 years ago for ~$100. It is tack sharp if you can deal with the chromatic aberrations that show up in high contrast scenes. I shoot raw and Capture NX2 does a pretty good job of cleaning up the CAs. The lens meters fine on my D300. I have also used it on my D50, but metering then is done by "dead reckoning" - soft of like "chimping strobist style" to get the exposure right for flash - except doing it via fstop and shutter to get the base exposure correct.

The long images were shot at 225 feet. My tripod isn't tall enough to see over a 6' fence. I use a small two step ladder and rest the tripod collar on top of the fence. I then lean into the fence and brace one knee to help me reduce vibration. Once in focus, I brace the front part of the lens with one hand and rest my right elbow (trigger hand) also on top of the fence. With a little care, most of the motion and vibration avoided. It would be much easier with a tripod and cable release.

I do shoot a lot of daytime softball with the 70-300 VR however. This lens is quite good for this duty. Sharp, Contrasty, Quick Focus, great length, and nice color reproduction. It also is light. I love the lens for this application.

[heard03]

Good stuff, Jeff. Softball is a great sport.

[Cajungaltx]

I'm shooting my daughters softball game tomorrow...first home game that has occurred due to 'rain' issues... I was curious about using my 80-200...the game is at 4 or 4:30... I have a friend who has a 300 manual focus... I've used it before... but was still learning... so I was mainly terrified of it... ;-) Giant a$$ darn thing... came with it's own darn suitcase... ;-) But maybe I'll see about borrowing it again...

[MT Stringer]

The 80-200 should be good for infield shots, but it will be short for outfield shots. But that shouldn't keep you from shooting anyway and cropping later.
Good luck.

[chemisti]

http://www.markptak.com/tests/tokina400mm/index.htm

[tech1961]

Great action on these.