Softball Pic

[Dirk W]

My first attempt at softball was hit and miss. First, the bad news. I got a fair amount of pics like this and I'd like to know why. I'm guessing that in evaluative metering I was sometimes not zooming in enough so the camera had diffiulty focusing on what I wanted it to. Too much stuff for f2.8and the metering? Am I in the ball park?? I'm not worried about composition stuff yet. I coach and am stuck in the dug out most of the time. Anyway, I've got some better pics (some lots better) and one I almost cried because it didn't turn out so great - an "almost" shot. I'll post them later.

File size: 214338 bytes

File date: 2007:07:18 03:10:15

Camera make: Canon

Camera model: Canon EOS 30D

Date/Time: 2007:07:15 06:19:57

Resolution: 640 x 427

Flash used: No

Focal length: 130.0mm (35mm equivalent: 208mm)

CCD width: 22.48mm

Exposure time: 0.0001 s (1/8000)

Aperture: f/2.8

ISO equiv.: 400

Whitebalance: Auto

Metering Mode: matrix

Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)

[Steve Foss]

Yep, sports can be like that. Lots of strikes leavened by a few hits. The more you shoot it, the better your hitting percentage will be.

There's no need to shoot loose because you're in evaluative metering. It does a fine job in most cases, tight or loose.

I can't see what focus mode you're in here, but regardless of which one it is, the lens grabbed the back fence instead of the pitcher because your focus point wasn't on the pitcher. If you were in one shot mode, you could lock focus on the pitcher by focusing on her and leaving the shutter depressed half way and waiting for the shot to happen. If you're in Al servo mode, which is what I generally recommend for action sports, your focus point left the pitcher and the focus grabbed the back fence just before you tripped the shutter. A large part of getting excellent sports shots is getting very used to tracking the subject with your selected focus point. The better you get at keeping the focus point right on the athlete, the more shots you'll be happy with.

In some ways it feels better to shoot loose compositions, especially at the beginning of the learning curve. If, for example, you were shooting a tight portrait of the pitcher's whole body as she pitched, you'd want to compose vertically, select the top-most focus point within the vertical frame, and keep that focus point on her head. Not really an easy task shooting tight in Al servo.

Keep it up. You'll get better and better at it.

[Dbl]

Steve is on the right track here. Here is a copy of your photo with the focus points the camera used on. When shooting sports or any other subject that requires you to focus on the subject only, example a bird in a tree with branches, you need to have a SINGLE focus point selected.

The AF system is doing what it was designed to do, catch the focus on the photo as a whole. If you want to focus on a particular object in you field of view your need to help the camera with that decision. Change to center point focus and then begin many hours of practice on keeping that little red square on your subject while it is moving.

Center point focus only in AI Servo will give you the results you are looking for. Practice, practice, practice. On the positive side the exposure looks good.

[Dirk W]

Here are some better ones. Not great - but getting there. I had lots like these.

This one was close. It would have been great.

Any comments on how to bet better are welcome.

[Dbl]

Very nice Dirk, let me give you some C&C on each.

#1 A bit underexposed, but easily corrected in post processing. The action is past peak here, what you want is the ball at the top or better yet right at the point of release.

#2. Beautiful Shot !! That is a winner all the way around, I would crop it vertically to tighten it up some. My favorite type of shot, the sportrait. Slightly underexposed again. If this is your daughter get that made into an 8 x 10 and proudly hang that in your home.

#3 Not bad, correct your horizon by straighening your photo. I use vertical poles to help me, they are always straight on ballfields. The horizontals can have tilts to them. Get lower, down on your knees to allow you to get under the helmets and see the eyes better. It also gives the subject a more powerful look! Crop tighter!

#4. Nice shot here, slightly soft but great action, just what I was talking about in #1. Again get your rear in the grass and get lower. Nice photo.

5. I love it, I think you got the shot, straighen the horizon and crop and you have a shot that captures what sport is all about. Great work on all of these, looks as if your new camera will be treating you well!.

[Steve Foss]

There you go. Nos. 4 and 5 are total winners, No. 4 for action, No. 5 for mood.

Good work.

[Dirk W]

Excellent help!! Thanks. All weekend I kept thinking "I'm not gettig their faces". "Get Lower" - I won't forget!

Post Processing - I knew that topic would come up soon. All I've got is the basic Cannon Zoombrowser. When I hit "auto fix" it usually brings out the blues and other colors and sharpens a bit. Should I set my camera setting differently? I shoot only jpg for now. Anyway, whats next as far as processing software? Something that will get me to where I need to eventually be. Photoshop is expensive and not sure if I need that much power? Elements, Lightroom??

Can software straighten horizens? I'm not sure how to even correct for underexposure so I've got a long ways to go.

Not my daughter, but a good friends girl. It will make a great end-of-year keepsake. Thanks again .

[Steve Foss]

Yep, time to enter post processing software land.

You don't need to go the full monte on photoshop, however. Just get the latest version of photoshop elements, which will have the camera RAW plug-in so it can read RAW images from your camera. You can do more with a RAW image easier than with a jpeg. Photoshop opens a preview screen when you start to open a RAW image, and on the preview screen you can change a ton of settings, including exposure, sharpness, saturation, etc. A RAW image is likened to an undeveloped negative and the preview screen lets you "develop" the digital negative however you like (within limits).

When I open an image in PS, whether it's RAW or jpeg, I save it immediately as a tif file so I don't overwrite the original. I don't save as a jpeg until I'm ready to post it online or e-mail it to someone, because saving and resaving jpegs degrades quality slightly each time.

I can tell you lots of ways to process images in photoshop, but since you're using the zoom browser, it wouldn't help you. In photoshop, you can level the horizon, change exposure and on and on and on. Not having ever used the zoombrowser, I don't know what that will and won't allow.

[Dbl]

Might I suggest you get the Google download of Picasa. Its free and a rather easy program to use and has some nice automated features. After you use that a bit get a copy of Photoshop Elements. It is really Photoshop light. Fairly easy to use and will get you somewhat familar with its big brother Photoshop if and when you make that leap.

Zoombrowser is more of a sorting program, not much for editing. I haven't used Lightroom but I know many that love it. Picasa also has a RAW editor so it will work with any file.

[MARINERMAGNUM]

If you have a 30D,you have the Canon DPP software CD-use it to process your raw images.

[Steve Foss]

Let me explain a bit about my workflow and it will illustrate why I don't need a download/sorting/RAW converter on top of Photoshop.

I shoot everything RAW+small jpeg. I download a shoot by putting the CF card in my card reader and dragging the images over to a folder on my desktop. Once that's done, each image in the folder will be represented two image files with the same number but a different tag (.jpg and .CR2). I sort by double-clicking each small jpeg in the desktop folder, which comes up instantly. I toss the ganged RAW/jpeg images I don't want and keep the ones I do.

That way, there's no need to actually open a RAW image until I need to use it for something. So I've never cracked the box on Canon's software, and my thinking is that Dirk likely will get to Photoshop Elements one way or another, so it's simplest to just get the latest version of that.

Now, if Picasa has a 30D camera RAW plug-in, it would work just fine with the workflow I've described.

But that's just my thinking, and there's lots of room for different ways of doing things.