D90 setup for Little league baseball

[ktomei]

I have purchased the Nikon D90 to take pictures of my son and his baseball team. Other than leaving the D90 at its defaults and just changing the AF mode to AF-C is there anything else that should be changed. I will shoot in S mode as opposed to Sports and manual as opposed to automatic. I would also like recommendations for lenses. I know that the best picture will come from the person taking the pictures but a good lens helps. Which lens will be best with-out breaking the bank. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kim Tomei

 

[JaronRH]

If you're outside in good light, the 70-300 VR would be a really good lens to use! It's got a fast focusing speed with the D90 and fairly good quality without breaking the bank. It can be a little soft on the long end though. I've heard good things about the Tamron 70-300 VC as well so you might want to look into that too.

 

[Snowtographer]

You're shooting in fully manual exposure? I would strongly recommend against that, you're just complicating things for yourself and unless you're superhuman, you're going to get fewer properly exposed pictures than letting your camera decide on the exposure for you. Your best bet shooting action is to use shutter priority.

I use the 70-300 VR at work and it's a great lens.

 

[TheLost]

+1 for the Nikon 70-300 VR (make sure its the VR.. the cheap non-vr isn't any good)... You can normally find them used for $350.. refurbished for $399 and new around $550.

Don't use the fancy 'Modes'... A or S (and M when you get more experience) are where you need to stay.

I either shoot Manual or Aperture priority when i shoot sports. The goal is to isolate your subject from the background while still keeping a fast enough shutter to stop the action. Shutter priority is also good when your just starting out.

Keep in mind.. your best choice is a fixed aperture f/2.8 lens, but your starting price for a 70-200 or 80-200 f/2.8 will be around $600.

 

[KmH]

You're shooting in fully manual exposure? I would strongly recommend against that, you're just complicating things for yourself and unless you're superhuman, you're going to get fewer properly exposed pictures than letting your camera decide on the exposure for you.

I almost always shot action sports in manual mode, and I am not superhuman. When I didn't use manual mode I used aperture priority, not shutter priority.

DoF control was more important to me than shutter speed, but I kept a close eye on the shutter speed in the camera's viewfinder to make sure it was fast enough to stop motion in the scene. An important key to doing action sports shots is anticipating the action, and tripping the shutter at the height of the action which is when motion is often the slowest.

Shooting outside the challenge was when it was cloudy, and a cloud would move in front of the Sun. Otherwise, the light didn't change so much as to make Manual mode any more difficult to use.

 

[Snowtographer]

You're shooting in fully manual exposure? I would strongly recommend against that, you're just complicating things for yourself and unless you're superhuman, you're going to get fewer properly exposed pictures than letting your camera decide on the exposure for you.

I almost always shot action sports in manual mode, and I am not superhuman. When I didn't use manual mode I used aperture priority, not shutter priority.

DoF control was more important to me than shutter speed, but I kept a close eye on the shutter speed in the camera's viewfinder to make sure it was fast enough to stop motion in the scene. An important key to doing action sports shots is anticipating the action, and tripping the shutter at the height of the action which is when motion is often the slowest.

Shooting outside the challenge was when it was cloudy, and a cloud would move in front of the Sun. Otherwise, the light didn't change so much as to make Manual mode any more difficult to use.

I suppose I am always shooting different parts of ski runs that have streaks of shadows from pine trees and terrain, and I'm always dealing with fast moving clouds and crap, and my exposure is always changing, so my experience is different. That and my subjects move way faster than humans run, so I'm always maintaining higher shutter speeds.

Sorry to spread information that didn't apply in a general sense, I'll be more mindful of that. However, based on the limited information the OP provided, it does sound like he or she (I know a couple of Kims of both genders!) may not have a ton of experience, and for the time being I do believe they would be better served with aperture or shutter priority. I stick with shutter priority, and play with ISO so that generally I'm shooting close to, but not quite wide open. Lack of blur is more important than fine-tuning DoF for what I do..Again, I need to remember that my needs (catering to corporate standards shooting something that it doesnt appear many people on these forums shoot) often don't apply in a general sense.

 

[TheLost]

(kind of off topic but.. all add my comments)

I suppose I am always shooting different parts of ski runs that have streaks of shadows from pine trees, and I'm always dealing with clouds and crap, and my exposure is always changing, so my experience is different. That and my subjects move way faster than humans run, so I'm always maintaining higher shutter speeds.

Sorry to spread information that didn't apply in a general sense, I'll be more mindful of that.

Having shot my share of snowsports (i can see three ski resorts from my window right now) i always shoot either A or M... A Skier, Snowboarder, kid sliding into home or going out for a pass.. they are all fast moving objects that you are trying to make the subject of your picture.

IMHO.. shooting snow sports is easier to get a high shutter speed because your target is riding on natures natural sun reflector.. The hard part is to do it with a wide aperture

 

[KmH]

How much panning do you do?
Panning reduces the needed shutter speed.

I shot open wheel formula racing cars in manual mode too, at speeds up to 240 mph.

One year in Reno I shot the airplane races using mostly manual mode - 500+ miles per hour.

 

[Snowtographer]

(kind of off topic but.. all add my comments)

I suppose I am always shooting different parts of ski runs that have streaks of shadows from pine trees, and I'm always dealing with clouds and crap, and my exposure is always changing, so my experience is different. That and my subjects move way faster than humans run, so I'm always maintaining higher shutter speeds.

Sorry to spread information that didn't apply in a general sense, I'll be more mindful of that.

Having shot my share of snowsports (i can see three ski resorts from my window right now) i always shoot either A or M... A Skier, Snowboarder, kid sliding into home or going out for a pass.. they are all fast moving objects that you are trying to make the subject of your picture.

IMHO.. shooting snow sports is easier to get a high shutter speed because your target is riding on natures natural sun reflector.. The hard part is to do it with a wide aperture

I made some edits after you quoted me, sorry about that. Doesn't really matter.

I will definitely take everyone's input into account. I know a lot of people here have been shooting a lot longer than I've been alive, and I couldn't be more thankful to have a community of such experienced people. The only things I know are from my company's photography instructors, and what I've learned from my experience. Floating the ISO around as the light changes and keeping my shutter speed nice and high, especially when I shoot racers, has been my general routine. Unfortunately, I won't be able to try until next season I am relegated to post-processing and troubleshooting computers for the rest of the year since destroying my right tib/fib in a freeway speed snowboard incident.

 

[Snowtographer]

How much panning do you do?
Panning reduces the needed shutter speed.

I shot open wheel formula racing cars in manual mode too, at speeds up to 240 mph.

One year in Reno I shot the airplane races using mostly manual mode - 500+ miles per hour.

We try to avoid blurred backgrounds as much as possible. It's not what I want to do, it's what my boss tells me to do. I got in trouble when I showed up on the first day and did all my shots panned with the background blurred.

I don't have very much freedom or choice in what I do. That said, I get paid to take pictures at age 19 with only a handful of years taking photography semi-seriously on and off, so I can't complain one bit about my job.

I have no doubts about your skill as a photographer based on how knowledgeable and helpful you are on the forums. It is the OP I was trying to give advice to, and I feel that it is not a bad recommendation to let the OP gain more experience shooting action before worrying about manual exposure modes. If you disagree, I would love to hear why. Just a few posts back I was given advice where I just wasn't doing things maybe as effectively as I could have been, so it wouldn't surprise me one bit if I'm wrong here.

I'm also loaded up on opiates 24/7, so I'm not necessarily as logical and coherent as I could be!

 

[Snowtographer]

I also failed to understand that you guys are talking about using A for isolating your subject, not bringing more of the frame into focus. This all makes much more sense to me now, since that lends itself to a faster shutter speed.

I know I shoot aperture priority when I'm shooting steep or mogul runs and want to bring more of the run into focus to highlight the challenge. I can definitely see why aperture priority makes more sense for what I'm doing all the time though, since you're telling me to keep more open apertures, not stopping the lens down. I don't think it practice it's going to make a terribly big difference since like I said, I play with the ISO to get my aperture hovering around where I want it for a given shutter speed, but if there's a more consistent way of doing things, I'm all for it.

Thanks a bunch guys!

Sorry for derailing the thread so much, but it did help me out a bunch.