Little League
These are a few from a little league game late in the afternoon this past weekend (6/3/12), just before they turned the field lights on. All except the last one was shot through the fence to the left of home plate, next to the home team's dugout. The last two were shot from the press box.
#1 The wind up
#2
#3 My first shot capturing the ball just after leaving the pitchers hand!
#4 Putting everything into it
#5 Then the rain came!
#6 This kid resembles Ron Howard when he was younger!
Thanks for taking a look. As always, C&C is greatly appreciated.
GaryB
#1 The wind up
#2
#3 My first shot capturing the ball just after leaving the pitchers hand!
#4 Putting everything into it
#5 Then the rain came!
#6 This kid resembles Ron Howard when he was younger!
Thanks for taking a look. As always, C&C is greatly appreciated.
GaryB
GaryB
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
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Comments
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Thanks for the C&C Jack! I will try cropping those as suggested, and give it a shot at cloaning out the extra legs. Only place to get low at this field is right by the dugouts because of the advertising banners. Every place else you have to shoot high, and the only places you don't have to shoot through the fence is from the press box, or from the hill by the outfield fence. I will ask the coaches if it will be OK to shoot some from the dugout next time I'm there.
GaryB
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
#7
#8
#9
GaryB
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
1) change shooting position.
2) create shallower DOF
When you're forced to shoot from outside a fence, #1 can be tough. Unfortunately a big part of quality sports shooting is location. For #2, you need to use longer focal lengths and wider apertures. In reality for a shot like this though, you need to combine the two. With such a bad background, I might suggest getting shots of the pitcher more head-on from behind the plate. You'll have greater separation of pitcher from background. You could have done everything perfectly with these pitcher shots but that car ruins them.
Points taken on backgrounds John. I have a huge problem with backgrounds at this field. Where the cars are in these shots, is a street and cars park along there. If I shoot from behind home plate, I'm still getting cars in the background. If I move to a spot along the firstbase line, I get cars from the parking lot. If I shoot from the thirdbase line then I get a bunch of differnet colored advertising banners. The only way I have found to eliminate the distracting backgrounds is to shoot from the pressbox, which I don't care to do, but have from time to time.
The season will be over after this weekend, and the All-Star games start next month. By then I'm hoping to have a 70-200 f2.8 and that should help me blur out those distracting backgrounds. Untill then, I guess I'm going to have to spend a bunch of time cloaning out those cars.
Thanks again John for the tips! I really appreciate it!
GaryB
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
See now THESE look like posters. Or baseball cards.
The background critique is valid, but sometimes there's just nothing you can do and you are just surrounded by unattractive stuff. The angle on the pitcher is great, so if there were cars and stuff in all directions, then I'd say you did well.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Thanks for the comment! It's the people of Dgrin who offer up tips and suggestions that are helping me a lot! It's when no one responds to a thread that makes me wonder where I went wrong, what could be done to make it better, or if it is just OK. At the present time I am doing this as a hobby, but eventually would like to do this more professionally, so I still have some time to refine my skills. Up untill now my favorite stuff to shoot was auto racing, mainly drag racing, but have been exploring other areas as well.
GaryB
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
I was just contacted a few minutes ago and it looks like I will be going to Williamsport, to the field where the little league world series is played, tomorrow to shoot two of the local teams that will be playing there. If that place is as I was told, I should be able to get some good shots, as I have never been to this field.
Anyway, what are your opinions on this edit?
Thanks for any and all C&C, as this is helping me see my mistakes!
GaryB
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
In my limited experience with altering backgrounds, it's much harder to get a good result when you are cloning from a homogeneous region such as grass or blue sky; there are always small differences that show up as swaths in the shot. I have found it much easier to clone highly variable parts, like the trees at the top of this pic. However, I am by no means a PS content alteration expert--not my thing--so take this for what it's worth...
No, I think that will be obvious to anybody that it has been altered.
I think the only thing you could do would be to go back to the field on a day when nobody is there and the weather and time of day are the same, and take a shot of the empty pitchers mound, then paste the player on top of that. Of course, this would only be worth it if he is your own child, or if the parents commissioned the photo.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Nikon D700, 24-70 f2.8, 70-200 f2.8, 70-300 VR, SB800, SB600
Alienbee B800x2, B400x2, Silver PLMx2
That is one loocation that is impoosible to shoot from at this field. They have a dark green screen that covers the entire backstop as seen in the photo below. I think they installed that to block the sun somewhat when it is setting, as this is facing towards the west, and games start late afternoon, and run into the evening when they need to turn the field lights on.
GaryB
BTW...This team was undefeated in tournament play, and had only one loss in regular season play!
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
In a situation like that, during warm ups, ask the ump if you can go out and take some shots of the pitcher from behind the catcher, I stand off to the side a tad in case the catcher misses the ball. I have never had an ump tell me no to this request, even for High School games. Ive only had one ball come straight at me, little league fast pitch softball game, I got the shots, and got out of the way without getting hit lol.