1st attempt with 300/4 prime lens for baseball

[garykohs]

I bought a Canon 300/4 L IS on TPF and gave it a try for the first time on Tuesday night at a JV game - Klein Oak vs. Klein Forest. These are with my 1DMkIV.

C&C welcome. It's going to take some getting used to as I've always shot with zooms before. But the IQ of the lens is certainly stellar.

[shaggyrockmer]

lense looks good. any complaints with it? is it too heavy to hand hold?

[MRCPix]

WOW those are good. I have been thinking about getting one of these lenses for wildlife and daytime sports.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Throw a 2x or 1.4X and shift the camera into a portrait mode and you can really get right up on them, you have plenty of light during day games. Also try to find where the two teams colors are not the same-looks like the catcher is trying to put out his own teammate.

Some good shots btw, nice bokeh in a couple of them, I assume you were shooting around f8?

[Tom]

Very sharp. Good action.

Not sure what you are doing in post, but I am seeing a dark halo around the players in most of the pics.

[tukaniray]

Those are super sharp shots and good action shots too.

Wow ... for your first attempt at that 300 ... That's awesome.

-Ray-

[garykohs]

Thanks, everyone, for the comments.

Most or all of these were shot in aperture priority at f5.6.

I'm not seeing the dark halos but perhaps my eyesight just isn't good enough to detect it. The PP was in LR3 beta 2 and I imported using Matt Kosklosky's auto presets (from lightroomkillertips.com). I adjusted from there.

The lens is wonderfully light, compared to my 70-200/2.8L IS or 100-400L (or Sony 70-400G or 70-200G). It is long. I love the built in hood - it just extends from the lens body rather than having to fit the hood to the lens. That's really handy when you're having to shoot through a fence or screen. I usually spend lots of time taking that danged hood off and on.

[rab3rd]

I see the Halos too, really stands out on picture two and three. In 2 all around the second basemans butt and all around the left leg of the SS? in picture three.

[garykohs]

Thanks, Rob. I see them now. Around the areas where the whites are blown.

[John Godwin]

I can create the dark halo around well exposed whites when clarifying to much in Lightroom. I suspect these halos are produced in post processing and not by the lens or camera.

[ldelacruz]

Good ones Gary! Glad to see you got a good prime!

[shaggyrockmer]

hey can you post a picture of what this camera lense looks like on your actual camera? I saw some pics of this lense and it looks kinda long and skinny

[garykohs]

Here you go, Shaun. Taken with 7D and 70-200L IS:



It's kind of long and skinny. And this is with the lens hood retracted. It's really a joy to use though.

[garykohs]

I need to apply some noise reduction to these for this size. For the 800px size on the website they don't really need it.

ISO 4000, 1/1,000, f4 - no noise reduction:


ISO 12,800, 1/1,000, f4 - This was controversial. The runner was called out for leaping over the catcher.


Same play - f4.5 - I need to brighten this and add some NR, right?


"Yeah, that's gone." Garrett Harrison is one of the areas HR leaders and, I'm proud to say, one of my A.P. Macroeconomics students.
ISO 10,000, 1/1,000, f4


ISO 12,800, 1/1,000, f4


ISO 12,800, 1/1,000, f4


Alex Belcher, one of my A.P. Microeconomics students.
ISO 12,800, 1/1,000, f4


ISO 12,800, 1/1,000, f4


Senior Wade Halfmann after his game ending 2 RBI triple.


A couple of hours earlier Wade and teammate Ethan Carnes had a different mission (taken with 7D and 70-200L IS):


They said "yes!"