Safe, No Out, No Safe....

SoonerShawn

Here is a series of a play at home plate I shot on Monday. All critiques are greatly appreciated.









Nikon D3
80-200 @ f3.5 - 92mm
ISO 320 - 1/3200
Manual mode

BlueHoseJacket

safe....great shots

Erbeman

Awesome!

KCBearcat

As an umpire, I'm not pleased that he seems to be moving with the play happening at the plate, but I have no problem with the photos... nicely done.

SoonerShawn

KCBearcat wrote:

As an umpire, I'm not pleased that he seems to be moving with the play happening at the plate, but I have no problem with the photos... nicely done.

He actually just leaned over on his front foot. But you know how umpires are...none of em ever do a good job right???

j-bo

Very nice stuff. I don't understand the umpire comment?

He seems to be looking directly at the play at the plate and focused on the tag.

Course, I ain't no umpire.

Called him safe right?

SoonerShawn

j-bo wrote:

Very nice stuff. I don't understand the umpire comment?

He seems to be looking directly at the play at the plate and focused on the tag.

Course, I ain't no umpire.

Called him safe right?

This was acutally a very close call. He was safe, and the umpire got it right. I would have hated to be the guy wearing blue for this one though.

termina3

To explain the umpire comment: when judging a play, umpires are supposed to keep their heads still while maintaining a good angle. The players already create enough movement to keep things tough; adding an additional three axes of movement isn't going to make the play easier to see. To relate it to photography, shooting from a tripod is better for image quality because of the stability it provides; as long as the tripod doesn't get in the way of the 'right' angle.

Oh, and the umpire always gets it right

And what is the on deck batter doing where he is? He should be instructing the runner to slide/stand…

to the photos:

Crop everyone but the two players involved out. The umpire isn't doing anything…*there's no interest there. The third base coach certainly has no immediate impact on the play.

SoonerShawn

termina3 wrote:

To explain the umpire comment: when judging a play, umpires are supposed to keep their heads still while maintaining a good angle. The players already create enough movement to keep things tough; adding an additional three axes of movement isn't going to make the play easier to see. To relate it to photography, shooting from a tripod is better for image quality because of the stability it provides; as long as the tripod doesn't get in the way of the 'right' angle.

Oh, and the umpire always gets it right

And what is the on deck batter doing where he is? He should be instructing the runner to slide/stand…

to the photos:

Crop everyone but the two players involved out. The umpire isn't doing anything…*there's no interest there. The third base coach certainly has no immediate impact on the play.

Thanks...let me ask you a question...would you crop the 1st image in that way? The reason I left it the way I did was because it showed the ball coming in, giving the view some idea of the closeness of the play. Do you feel the image is stronger without the ball in it?

termina3

SoonerShawn wrote:

Thanks...let me ask you a question...would you crop the 1st image in that way? The reason I left it the way I did was because it showed the ball coming in, giving the view some idea of the closeness of the play. Do you feel the image is stronger without the ball in it?

Keeping the ball in the frame is always a good idea. But there comes a point when it interferes with "cropping close," which is my preference for sports photos, and you have to give up on keeping the ball in. Where that line is? Highly subjective and individual.

If I were post processing for sale (which is what I do with sports photos), images 1, 3, and 4 would've come out in the second round of culling. I would keep 2 because it is just before the play, still has some of the base runner's face, and can be easily cropped vertically. Honestly, your timing is just slightly off--the shot you want is between photos 2 and 3. This is the problem with using the burst mode on your camera (I say this somewhat hypocritically).

However, if I were targeting the red team, none of these photos would make round two even. No one likes looking at their own backside.

These photos are a great example of how minute details can make or break sports photography. If you were hoping to get a good photo of this play, you should've moved--the angle sucks. That would require guessing the play was going to happen before it did, which risks missing a different play. For example, you're probably in good position to catch a double play at second. This is why you can shoot 1000 sports photos and get less than 10% that are worthwhile.

Sports photography is tough. I work for a company that covers big games with 4 shooters and at least 2 remote cameras. That produces about 4000 photos per game. Usually I'm the one who post-processes them. Our shooters are very good, and consistantly get the plays. They're well versed in the game they're covering, know which angles work best, which photos sell, etc, etc. But I'm picky (coworkers call me the "noise nazi"), and 4000 goes to <200 in 3-4 hours. That's 5% of all photos make it into the final round of culling. We usually post around 150, or 3.75%, for a big game like that. Of those, 50, or 1.25%, will sell (multiple copies of single photos don't count).

…and customers wonder why we have to charge many, many times our "cost" to print the photo.