Youth Baseball Tournament

[Wes]

First of all, I have GOT to get a better lens. My Nikkor AF 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 just doesn't seem to do the job that I would like. The shots below will satisfy most of the parents, but I want better.

Anyways... here are some shots from a couple of games at a recent youth baseball tournament. The lighting was horrendous - late afternoon soon going down in the outfield. It couldn't have picked a worse angle for the sun. I still think I came away with a few decent captures, though.


(On this one, I was just playing around with a slow shutter speed while zooming the lens. I think it came out kind of neat.)
(220mm, f/11, 1/25)


(85mm, f/8, 1/250)


(300mm, f/5.6, 1/1250)


(240mm, f/7.1, 1/320)


(220mm, f/7.1, 1/500)


(240mm, f/5.3, 1/500)


(165mm, f/9, 1/640)


(112mm, f/5.6, 1/400)

[Daniel Bates]

I hear you on the lighting. My Frisbee games are played around 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM, and the lighting is very directional. f/4.5-5.6 doesn't help much either...

What shutter speeds were these at? Some of them appear softer than others--the last one, for example.

[Wes]

I edited it to add some of the pertinent EXIF data.

[Daniel Bates]

Photobucket tends to kill EXIF data... I found your album and looked at the data on there. Looks like you were shooting in shutter-priority, f/8.0 and 1/250 for a couple, f/5.6 and 1/1250 for others. I almost always shoot sports in Av with the maximum aperture selected, and ride my ISO to keep the shutter speed above 1/1000 or so.

[Wes]

Yes, I was in shutter priority mode. I hadn't really considered using aperture priority and riding the ISO. Thanks for the tip! I'll give that a shot next time.

Also, thanks for the reply. It's a tough crowd around here if you don't shoot football or cheerleaders.

[Daniel Bates]

--especially cheerleaders.

I'd like to see the first one (the slow shutter+zoom technique) done when they player is facing you... and centered on the face if possible. If you have a flash, try a shutter drag (also called rear curtain sync). There's a lot of info on that technique in the Wedding board, actually.