One of the great features of our new Nikon D200 is its "continuous shooting" feature that lets you blaze away at up to 5 frames per second for several seconds at a time. The D100, in contrast, could only manage 3 fps and the buffer loaded up after about 5 shots.
The continuous shooting mode is particularly useful for action/sports photography, so I took it over to the Little League ballpark across the street from our house last evening for a test run.
The sky was overcast and it was late in the day, so there wasn't a lot of light. To compensate, I used my 80-200mm f/2.8 lens and cranked the ISO up to 1,000. That let me shoot at shutter speeds in the 1/2000 sec range which permitted a reasonable number of frames per second on continuous shooting.
I was leaning on the left field fence for stability, so I was about as far from home plate as you can get and still be on the perimeter. Consequently, my home plate shots had to be substantially cropped to isolate the action there.
But even with a high ISO and the attendant image noise, I got some pretty decent stuff. Here's my favorite, with the color saturation juiced up and some sharpening added in Photoshop.
Notice, you can even see the stitching on the ball.
Of course, you never know exactly what you're going to get when you depress the shutter button - it all happens way too quickly for you to see what the camera is capturing and it's always a surprise when you review the images on the monitor on the back.
About the only thing you need to know is to start shooting when you think the action is starting and stop when it ends, then see what you got. So all you can really control is your shooting position and the parameters of the exposure: f stop, shutter speed and ISO.
I'm eager to try again under better lighting conditions and from a better vantage point.
I was reminded anew last night that kids at this level of play are pretty awful when it comes to ball-handling. If I were coaching, I'd tell my kids to never swing at the ball because the odds are excellent that the pitcher can't put 3 out of seven pitches through the strike zone.
That's what happened last night. The Knights of Pythias team (blue shirts) must have scored five or six runs by getting baserunners advanced to home plate on walks. The play captured in this shot was one of the rare occasions when a batter got a hit. Even more surprising is that the fielder threw the ball anywhere near the catcher.
Most of the time, balls are thrown wildly and then fumbled on the other end.
A team with a good, accurate pitcher could dominate this league.
1 comment:
Seems as though everywhere I turn these days there is a baseball game going on and I BADLY wish to be ten years old just to play again. I remember vividly how it felt to be constantly hitching up those itchy socks and trying to keep all 5 pounds of my hair out of my eyes and under my hat and my left hand sweating in it's glove.
Like Heaven.
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