Nighttime softball with a Tammy 70-200 f2.8

[chemisti]

The local heroes won 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh inning. Final pic is the one that won the game.















Thanks for viewing!

[Sharon]

Great stuff! Are these with post processing? Can you share your settings? I'm trying to shoot at my niece's games (8 YO's) just for fun. Also, using 70-200, but not getting anything as sharp as yours. Thanks!

[LSCSN.com]

Nice shots Jeff.

[MRCPix]

Those are really nice very sharp and great colors..

Jeff this is the first set I have seen of sports shoot with that lens. I must know more as I am thinking about buying it and I shoot a bunch of sports so due tell how it performed.

[wondershots]

Nice shots. I probably would have bought that lens when I purchased my Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 but it wasn't available then.

[boxofrocks]

Nice. Hard to judge sharpness at web resolution, though Do you have any 100% crops to show?

[chemisti]

I believe this is a "100 percent crop" (Chosen because of good light and little subject movement.)

[boxofrocks]

That's pretty nice.

This lens got great reviews for sharpness--some said better than the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8. The big gripe was the focus speed. How does it compare to the AF-S you're shooting with?

[MRCPix]

I just rented this lens and the IQ is excellent, but my test will be this weekend when I have to shoot a couple soccer games.

[chemisti]

Paraphrased from a similar post when asked on Flickr: (Note - written to a general group - not a Nikon group).

"Preface:
(1) Nikon shooter. I have used the 80-200 f2.8 AFS, a 80-200 f2.8 AF-D, and the older 80-200 f2.8 single ring push-pull lenses. All of them have excellent optics.
(2) Not a Canon shooter, but I have looked at the Canon and Nikon equivalents and their prices. This lens optically is OUTSTANDING when measured on the "bang for the buck" scale.
(3) Overall, I like this glass, but...

Here's the deal:
The optical capabilities are wonderful. Bokeh - creamy smooth. Sharpness -great. Color and contrast - very good.

I have shot ~150k competitive softball images over the past 4 years (yes - I'm serious). This lens has "adequate" AF performance.

The AF speed is "middling" IMHO. It can usually be overcome with good technique (knowledge of the sport and anticipation) and by itself is adequate for most situations. If this were my only challenge with AF performance, I would not hesitate to recommend this lens to other sports shooters - not the blistering AF-S performance of other Nikkors in this class - but certainly very functional.

It is not so much the speed, but the "certainty" of the AF that appears to me to be it's problem. It is quite difficult to express in the written word. I have observed many times that the lens will "zero in" in increments when focusing on a stationary subject in broad daylight - it will adjust back and forth 2, 3, 4 times ever so slightly until it is locked on solidly. Other time - well, it just won't find a moving target - little lone catch up with one if it is moving quicly. This is not a problem when understood by the photog and can get the job done in many situations - just not in most sports shooting situations!

The D300 I shoot with has a wide variety of AF options and I have toyed with many of them trying to find the right combination of AF settings. I have come to the decision that it is just a shortcoming of the lens. It is maddening when this happens on a critical play and everything else was spot on to get the shot. I have also shot with this camera and other lenses and not had this problem

I freely acknowledge that it could well be operator error. I will say that it does not seem to perform as well as other lenses I have tried, however."

I would add that many reviews praise the AF characteristics of the D300 - It is now surpassed by the newer pro bodies who share the 51 point AF system but a have more powerful processors which gives them a slight edge in AF speed. Regardless - if this lens focused with the speed and certainty of the old two ring 80-200 f2.8 AF-d - it would find an immense following IMHO.

It is truly a love/hate relationship for me!

chemisti added 45 Minutes and 53 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Originally Posted by Sharon

Great stuff! Are these with post processing? Can you share your settings? I'm trying to shoot at my niece's games (8 YO's) just for fun. Also, using 70-200, but not getting anything as sharp as yours. Thanks!

I am not at home and don't have access to my settings. However, I can shed some light on some of this information from memory...

When shooting sports - I process for a lot of "good images" - not idividual works of art! I may occassionally spend a lot of time on a favorite, but typically I crop for standard sizes and general good results.

a. I am now shooting more and more RAW (especially at night). I am slowly learning how to use an entire "front-to-end" flow and Capture NX2 to cut down on PP time. I try to use consistent settings and use those assumptions in my PP work flow. I also try to set WB for large "blocks" of images.

b. I generally shoot set at D2XMode1 with sharpening set to 1. I leave noise reduction and ActiveD lighting off when shooting RAW (especially at night). I find the skin tones to be pleasing and try to increase saturation in PP rather than during capture.

c. I have saved several batch process adjustment files that generically apply to a type of shooting - i.e. "Night Batch 4x6 NR" that help out.

So, I work on an image in a general block shot in similar conditions
1. Adjust WB and other global changes and copy to an entire block shot in similar conditions (may be 15 or 150 or 1500 images).
2. Staighten, Crop, and make other minor edits to individual images.
3. I use the number "label' system in ViewNX and CaptureNX2 to denote a crop size (1 = 4x6P, 2= 4x6L, 3=5x7P, etc.). I label each image immediately after saving each one in the Capture NX2 browser pane.
4. I then select an entire group of partially edited images (all at the same crop size, labelled as such, and filtered) and run a batch adjustments file which typically contains:
a. automatic exposure adjustment (usually does a good job)
b. noise reduction (sometimes performed in step 1 above)
c. resize image at 300 dpi for whatever size print is desired (and already cropped)
d. HPF (typically 1.2, 50% luminosity, 0% chromanicity(????) overlay
e. USM (typically 30, 5, 5)
When batch processing, I then use "save as" to convert the files as jpg, in a subfolder named appropriately. I also rename by adding "4x6P" to the end of all the 4x6P images that are batch processed together.

I hope this makes sense - as I am working from memory.

I have just kept messing with this workflow for some time after reading a wedding photog's website (sorry, don't remember which one now) on which he stated that part of his workflow strategy was to attempt to capture large blocks of images with similar settings to speed workflow (use batches to help with workload). I also headed down this path after reading Jason ODell's book on CNX2.

I tend to do image adjustments/corrections rather than more advanced??? PP techniques.