Yankees v. mets

[BobTheNailer]

Wow! lots of great advice. Can't get to a (pro)warm up game, but maybe some local softball just too test things out. The MF AND ME stufff I would not have thought of.

Thanks to you all...

? should I shoot RAW, or just best jpg? Also its a night game under the lights.. If I shoot jpg do you think this might require a custom white B setting? Maybe I should bring a white card. I know years ago I poped off a few in film and they were slightly off color.

I really would love to get a sliding shot at home where I can see the dirt frozen in the air so I'll keep the shutter up 1/1600 or so. ohhh and hopfully it will be a Yankee scoring the winning run. LOL

[JohnG]

BobTheNailer wrote:

? should I shoot RAW, or just best jpg? Also its a night game under the lights.. If I shoot jpg do you think this might require a custom white B setting? Maybe I should bring a white card. I know years ago I poped off a few in film and they were slightly off color.

I would say start in JPEG with auto WB. Check the image as conditions change to see if WB still looks good. A custom WB could be difficult depending on how the light falls - after all it doesn't matter what the lighting is in the stands it matters what it is on the field. If the lighting conditions are the same then a custom WB would work. If they're not the same a custom WB will do more harm than good. In which case you can switch to RAW. I prefer to use RAW as a last resort because it's not needed most of the time and you lose buffer speed and eat up memory and add often unnecessar RAW conversion steps to your workflow. In any event, an occasional check of your LCD screen will tell you if you're having WB isssues.

[TCav]

BobTheNailer wrote:

The MF AND ME stuff I would not have thought of.

That method has a number of significant benefits. With the lens stopped down, your photos will be sharper, the greater depth of field will accommodate any focus errors, the shutter release won't lock because the AF & AE haven't finished because you weren't holding the shutter release half-way down, and with the AF & AE off, the battery will last longer. But if you shoot at 1/1600 & f/8, make sure you don't set the ISO so high that you get noise.

BobTheNailer wrote:

should I shoot RAW, or just best jpg?

I'd shoot best JPEG. RAW will slow down rapid sequence (or burst) shots (where you just hold down the shutter release and the camera just keeps taking pictures.)

[harmonica]

Is it possible to take action shots like that with a point and shoot?

[JohnG]

harmonica wrote:

Is it possible to take action shots like that with a point and shoot?

It depends on the point and shoot and light levels. In a day game, if you're close to the action then there are superzoom digicams that can do a decent job.

But when lighting gets poor the digicams will really suffer in quality.

And, I was using a 400mm lens (640mm equiv). So, again with ANY camera - dslr or digicam you can't shoot from too far away and expect the results to be good. You really do want the subject to fill the frame 2/3 of the way IN CAMERA - and this is with OPTICAL ZOOM ONLY (don't use digital zoom).

Now - realize that with a digicam you're going to have less frames per second (I have 5 most digicams have 3 or less), servo tracking is either non-existent or not as good - so when a subject is moving toward or away from you you may have more focus errors than a DSLR will have. Also, I was shooting down on the action so having shallow DOF to blur the distracting background wasn't applicable. But if you were level with the action you DO want to blur the background most of the time. A DSLR is going to do a MUCH better job of that than a digicam. Here's an example of what I mean:



see how the fence and building in the background is blurred? With a digicam it would be much more in focus and thus much more distracting.

So, if by 'action shots like this' you mean a handful of shots at a pro game - then yes you can get SOME. But your 'keeper rate' (i.e. quality shots kept vs shots taken) will be much lower. And, even then - when the subject is moving toward or away it will be even lower still. So, if you plan on doing a lot of sports shooting I haven't seen a digicam yet that even comes remotely close to what the entry level Canon DSLRs can do (I say canon because that's the system I'm most familiar with).

[airbrushjohn]

hi johng,

awesome shots! thanks for sharing!

[BobTheNailer]

thanks for all the help gang. Weather permitting I will hopefully have some nice stuff to show you all.
Nice shots john!

[BobTheNailer]

well,
I couldn't move around 2 much, but I think I got a few keepers. With the lights on the stadium is not as bright as you think. with the lens all the way open I was only able to get the speed upto 1/160 to 1/250. But it was great none the less.

[BobTheNailer]

a-rod

[BobTheNailer]

Posada