I brought along my Canon EOS 40D and my 100-400L Canon lens, figuring I'd get a chance for a few decent shots. What follows is the best of the bunch. It was a learning experience - I didn't get a chance to take nearly as many as I wanted - I was busy socializing, and I didn't bring my monopod with me (again!), which would have helped with even faster shutter speeds. But, ahh, the wonder of digital - I merely kicked up the ISO, and the result was these passable shots. The 100-400 is a relatively "slow" lens - I'm not fortunate enough to own a 400mm 2.8L lens, which costs more than a good used car.
My exposures are unrecorded, but I was shooting wide open, which varied between 4.5 & 5.6, depending on focal length. My shutter speeds varied between 1/125 and 1/250 sec., which worked for some shots, but I could have used about 2-3 stops more to get true freeze frame action in some of these. Now I know why professional sports photographers shell out all that money for their "fast" lenses.
I didn't quite have the best angle to get the best shots of the hitters, but I was still pleased with several of the ones I did manage to get. (Scroll down for a pretty cool series of Ryan Howard going yard late in the game.)
I did, however, manage to get pretty good shots of the pitchers in action. These pictures made me appreciate all that goes into delivering a pitch over the plate at about 90 m.p.h. or better. I've heard many sports commentators and former baseball players alike state that the toughest thing to do in professional sports is to hit a fastball in baseball. As big of a hockey and football fan I am (in that order), I have to agree with it - hitting 60 home runs in a season is a pretty amazing feat.
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The following images are a sequence of Ryan Howard going deep late in the game. It is pretty amazing how the 100-400 will bring the action in close, even when you are far away. (The EOS 40D also adds 1.6x magnification to the lens, making it a 160-640 - great for shooting sports shots, and image stabilization certainly helps, too.)
2 comments:
Great, you updated this! I'm gonna put this in my blog instead of the other one. Got tired of politics for a while. :-)
Glad you like it. I promise to be more regular with sharing pictures on here in the new year (another New Year's resolution!). I hear you about politics - I needed to step back for a little bit, too, but I'm going to begin posting on the other blog regularly starting later today. Thanks for reading - your comments are always interesting and I enjoy reading them!
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