I'm new to the forum, and while I've been photographing for a long time, I've never really tried sports photography before. So having bought myself a Nikon D50 and a Sigma 18-200 plus monopod for my retirement, I decided last summer to photograph the Holyoke Giants, a summer New England College League team here in Holyoke, MA, USA.
The first think I realized was that I really didn't have the long, fast lense I needed for really spectacular close-ups. And while I certain enjoy such shots as much as the next guy, I found even when I was close enough to the action to get such shots, I often chose a wider field of view. Basically, I view baseball as a game of position and strategy, punctuated by brief moments of action, kind of like chess movement on a board. So I like best when I can capture action within context, which is usually space, or anticipation, or movement of bodies towards or away. So my selection of shots reflects this philosphy, for better or worse. I do realize it is not the conventional or accepted wisdom of how to shoot the sport and would be happy to hearing other philosophies from others of you.
When I reviewed the shots on my hard disk in deciding what to put up on pbase, I realized also that this year I have to concentrate more on depth of field and in particular, learning to make sure I've mastered the d50's autofocus. A few shots suggest I was letting the camera focus off-action by a slight amount, and a few would have benefited from shorter depth of field. I tend to shoot shutter-priority first (an old habit) at high ISO and then focus on the action and capturing the right moment...and leave the remainder to the camera. Which under difficult low-light conditions, means having to use Photoshop Elements to adjust exposure and Neat Image sometimes to reduce noise. This coming year I plan to shoot only in NEF or NEF+JPEG mode to be able to do a better job of adjusting exposure and color correcting.
At any rate, here is the link to the gallery I just put up on pbase.com, and I hope you find something to enjoy there.
http://www.pbase.com/hflphotos/night_baseball
Your critique and comments are welcome.
The first think I realized was that I really didn't have the long, fast lense I needed for really spectacular close-ups. And while I certain enjoy such shots as much as the next guy, I found even when I was close enough to the action to get such shots, I often chose a wider field of view. Basically, I view baseball as a game of position and strategy, punctuated by brief moments of action, kind of like chess movement on a board. So I like best when I can capture action within context, which is usually space, or anticipation, or movement of bodies towards or away. So my selection of shots reflects this philosphy, for better or worse. I do realize it is not the conventional or accepted wisdom of how to shoot the sport and would be happy to hearing other philosophies from others of you.
When I reviewed the shots on my hard disk in deciding what to put up on pbase, I realized also that this year I have to concentrate more on depth of field and in particular, learning to make sure I've mastered the d50's autofocus. A few shots suggest I was letting the camera focus off-action by a slight amount, and a few would have benefited from shorter depth of field. I tend to shoot shutter-priority first (an old habit) at high ISO and then focus on the action and capturing the right moment...and leave the remainder to the camera. Which under difficult low-light conditions, means having to use Photoshop Elements to adjust exposure and Neat Image sometimes to reduce noise. This coming year I plan to shoot only in NEF or NEF+JPEG mode to be able to do a better job of adjusting exposure and color correcting.
At any rate, here is the link to the gallery I just put up on pbase.com, and I hope you find something to enjoy there.
http://www.pbase.com/hflphotos/night_baseball
Your critique and comments are welcome.
