First try at sports photography - Braves - Reds 5.15.12

[fjrabon]

Though I'm a huge sports nut (actually run a baseball blog under the ESPN banner), I've always been intimidated by the 'equipment requirements' of sports photography. But the other day I decided to try a few, given I had decent seats for the Reds - Braves game.

Biggest issue I found was I was never quite sure of the 'right' way to frame the shots. So any C+C on how to better compose these would be HIGHLY appreciated.

All shots were D3100, Nikkor 55-200 VR All of these were shot at 200mm and were then highly cropped. The seats were pretty good, but I was still several rows on the other side of the first base dugout.

1)

DSC_0169 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

2)

DSC_0142 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

3)

DSC_0133 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

4)

DSC_0135 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

 

[CMfromIL]

#3 is great. Shutter speed on the first 2 are a little low (1/500 and 1/320 respective). If your camera could have gone to ISO 6400 (I don't know Nikon) you might have been able to bump your speed up a notch.

Lower aperature would have done the same if you could go down to 2.8 even 4.0, but I'd be if your lens could have done it, you would have been there.

I enjoyed them, thanks for sharing.

 

[fjrabon]

#3 is great. Shutter speed on the first 2 are a little low (1/500 and 1/320 respective). If your camera could have gone to ISO 6400 (I don't know Nikon) you might have been able to bump your speed up a notch.

Lower aperature would have done the same if you could go down to 2.8 even 4.0, but I'd be if your lens could have done it, you would have been there.

I enjoyed them, thanks for sharing.

I was worried that bumping the ISO any more would kill them with noise (though perhaps that was unfounded, probably should have at least tried a few at higher ISO), given how much they were going to be cropped. And yeah, that Nikkor I think was a max (or min depending on how you look at it) of f/5.6 IIRC at 200mm.

 

[CMfromIL]

I've been pretty pleased with the 'noise reduction' in Lightroom 4 or CS6. You might push it sometime just to see what you can do post production wise. Afterall, it's just a ball game, and you're taking them for fun.

Besides, you will always miss 100% of any shot you don't take. Or so I've heard something like that.