Been practicing sports shots on little league, CC please

Howitzer

My best friends kids make great practice.. wanted to see what you guys thought. After the 4th game testing I felt they were getting better and worth posting here for your opinion. thanks in advance for the comments.

1/1000 f/7.1 ISO 800.. lens: Tamron 70-300mm. Little guy plays great even though he is the smallest on the team.


1/1000 f/4.2 ISO 800.. I love seeing them all close their eyes when the ball comes, watching them play at this level is priceless.


1/800 f/11 ISO 800 16mm Nikkor wide angle. thought I would mess around with some different style shots. I like the way this one turned out.


1/1250 f/9 ISO 800 Tamron 70-300mm. His expression is hilarious.



I kept my camera on shutter priority and let it choose the aperture, not sure if this is the best method or not as I am just starting out. Let me know what you guys think of them.

Thanks
Chuck

Toshido

I think you will find most people do it the other way around. Shoot in aperture priority and let the camera deal with shutter speeds, or just manual if lighting is consistent enough.

I think you have some cute shots there.

1, 2, and 4 all have excellent faces and expressions. A bright low sun did not seem to be too much trouble for you. the shadows look decent to me and the faces are well lit.

There are some places that even I can comment on that need work though.

#1, horizons.... Looks very tilted to me. Tops of fences will not always be horizontal, but the verticals should be vertical. Unless tilted for artistic reasons.
Try shooting vertical, portrait style, and get in tight. Coach and backgrounds do not add to the photo in my opinion. The photo is all about the little runner and his expression, get tight.
DOF, Depth Of Field, is too large on these. Shoot larger aperture and lower ISO to reduce the DOF and if you need to have those nasty background elements, at least blur the heck out of them.

#2 I really like. Shallower DOF would be great to help get rid of the background. Besides that I normally don;t like abnormal crops like that, too hard to print if that is an end goal. So cropping is a little weird, i like the long narrow crop of this shot and hard to nit about it because I am not sure of the reason for it.
It works great to isolate the action. Having a lot above and below the shot would be useless. But if you have no restriction on the crop, why not crop tighter on the sides as well? I personally would at least try cropping the right side more, probably getting rid of the player in the background.


Don't have much to say about #3 and 4 though. Number 3 is an okay shot, just don't see much use of the shot, maybe simply not a fan of baseball
#4 looks pretty god to me. Maybe taken a split second sooner to get the ball lower and tighter crop.... A shallower DOF definitely though.

MT Stringer

I think you will find most people do it the other way around. Shoot in aperture priority and let the camera deal with shutter speeds, or just manual if lighting is consistent enough.

Yep, what he said. I shoot AV mode, center point focus, AI Servo for all of my sports work. As the light drops, I up the ISO as needed. Finally once it's dark, I meter the scene, then switch the camera to manual and shoot at that setting - usually 1/400 - 1/500 sec at ISO 3200, f/2.8.

Aperture ranges from f/2.8 - f/4 - nothing over that. I use those setting so the background will be out of focus. There's no need for the fence and spectators to be in focus. It just takes away from the player(s)/action.

If I have a second body with a wide angle on it, I set it at f/5.6.

Hope this helps.
Mike

Example: Canon 1D MK III on manual, Sigma 120-300 f/2.8, 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

Howitzer

Thanks for you input, I will try to shoot either manual or aperture priority next time, I just didnt think it would get the higher shutter speeds if I did (ap mode)

I do have another pic of the 1st one, I used that one cause he is looking at the coach for what to do when he gets there, and its his dad, so I thought it added something to the pic. (not trying to argue your opinion just explaining my thought process)

Howitzer

Thanks Mike, I will try that. I think I might need some faster lenses though. My Tamron was a lower quality lens and AP range is 4-5.6, so its fairly slow. I had looked at your pics before and that's where I am striving to be.. very nice shots.

thanks
Chuck

Toshido

Okay being his dad does add something to that picture in my opinion. Especially if offered to dad. Being a casual viewer though we can't possibly know that.


Somewhat common advice I have seen around here is "shoot tight, crop tighter". That is my attempt and it seems to work.

MT Stringer

Toshido wrote:

Somewhat common advice I have seen around here is "shoot tight, crop tighter". That is my attempt and it seems to work.

Chuck, I took your pic and cropped it into portrait orientation. That makes for a tighter crop and eliminates unwanted background clutter.

Try it on your original version and see if it helps.
Mike

shphotos

I agree with the technical advise given by others, but I do want to say that I totally got the first picture. His expression just says, "What do I do? What do I do?" That one just doesn't make sense without the base coach in the picture. I generally shoot rec, slow pitch, junior high girls, and they are often watching the ball, not the base coach, so this was an adorable contrast to the expressions I usually get. I'll bet when he's a little older, this shot will make dad smile.

Howitzer

Thank you all for you input, I will try to put the advice to good use next trip.

goldenstarphoto

shphotos wrote:

I agree with the technical advise given by others, but I do want to say that I totally got the first picture. His expression just says, "What do I do? What do I do?" That one just doesn't make sense without the base coach in the picture. I generally shoot rec, slow pitch, junior high girls, and they are often watching the ball, not the base coach, so this was an adorable contrast to the expressions I usually get. I'll bet when he's a little older, this shot will make dad smile.

I totally agree.....as a dad and a former coach for three years, this is a picture that dad will treasure and be proud of. (It's not every day your kid pays attention)

zack75144

I agree with all the above but will add that I've finally moved on to shooting full manual. Got too much false metering off white or dark colored jerseys.