Spring Training

[PhoebeG]

Shot recently at a spring training game between the Cubs and Mariners. I don't get to shoot much sports, commments and suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Phil G.

[TracerNH]

There is a lot of interesting elements to this shot; you have the main attraction of the umpire, catcher and batter in the foreground and then you have two more layers of spectators - the players in the middle and the fans framing the top. The line of fans on the top makes the photo for me because they bring my attention right back to the batters box.

I wish the shutter speed was a tad faster to freeze the bat and the ball.

I like it.

Chris

[SmartWombat]

I wouldn't want the bat and ball frozen, but certainly less blurred.
There's too much movement in the bat to show it clearly.
It is an interesting study in shades of blue, even some (I would expect to be) white areas look blue.
Then that slash of green across the picture, it's good.

Technically there's a coule of things I'd try to fix:
The highlights are almost all too light, over-exposed.
The shadows are blue, instead of black.

Was this shot in RAW mode so you have the possibility of recovering the highlights and shadows?

I think this would look good in the sports forum too
Yes, I'm drumming up business for my forum

[PhoebeG]

Thanks for the input Chris and Wombat.

I agree, less blur would be better.

I did not shoot these in RAW, is there any other way to correct the blue hue? Thanks for pointing that out, I thought it had a cast but didn't realize that the shadows were actually blue.

I tried messing with lighting controls in PE but It didn't seem to be much of an improvement.

Phil G.

[twolfe9586]

There is a lot of interesting elements to this shot; you have the main attraction of the umpire, catcher and batter in the foreground and then you have two more layers of spectators - the players in the middle and the fans framing the top. The line of fans on the top makes the photo for me because they bring my attention right back to the batters box.

I wish the shutter speed was a tad faster to freeze the bat and the ball.

I like it.

Chris

Can't say it any better than that. how did you shoot this?

Shutter?
Aperture?
ISO?
focal length? ect...

[SmartWombat]

With only JPG there is less latitude to edit before the colours start looking wrong, because you can only have 256 different shades of red, blue, and green.
Is PE, photoshop elements?
There should be a way to improve it, but the lighting controls probably won't be enough.

[PhoebeG]

Didn't record the settings, but I was using an 80-400 Nikon lens on a Nikon D80, I think I had the ISO at 400 and the camera in Program, so it was probably around f5.6 at whatever speed the camera chose.

Yes, PE = photoshop elements. Good info about shooting in RAW. I tried using it once but it seemed like a lot of work, and I ended up with and twice as many files after I had to convert them so that I could edit them in PE 5.0.

So the casue of the blue shadows (like on the batter's pants) is due to overexposure?

Thanks

Phil G.

[TracerNH]

So the casue of the blue shadows (like on the batter's pants) is due to overexposure?

Thanks

Phil G.

I don't think the overexposure is causing the blue tones, it was probably the white balance setting on the camera. If you were to reduce the exposure you would see more detail (instead of bright whites) in the back right leg of both the catcher and the batter and it would tone down the bright spot on the batter's helmet.

I have never used PE, but there must some sort of white balance control; keep adjusting that until something that should be white is white or something that should be black is black. I would probably concentrate on the white pants and try to make them look less blue.

Chris

[vmlopes]

Agree with the blue cast, but PE should be able to correct this, for me I would crop the half man on the right completely out he drags my eye over that way when the action is going on elsewhere, this will bring the batter almost onto a vertical third line

[SmartWombat]

I don't think it all needs to be adjusted, but selective adjustments on the shadows to remove the blue cast, and on the highlights to tone them down a bit.

Phil G: If you use Lightroom (PC) or Aperture (Mac) then you can adjust the RAW image directly, without having to convert to another format. Also the editing is non-destructive so you don't lose the original file with all the raw data in it.
So you get the best of both worlds for simple adjustments.

[PhoebeG]

I've tried to incorporate some of the suggestions in this re-post.

Better? It seems a little washed to me.

Phil G.

[OldClicker]

Way better to me. In the first one, all I see is blue. Now I see some good emotions - intensity of the umpire, anticipation of the catcher and effort of the batter. I actually like it better when I position it on my screen so that the crowd is cropped. – TF

[SmartWombat]

I think it could use more colour saturation to bring back that impact the first one had.

The intensity of the blues is gone, but that looks like an overall colour adjustment?
Instead of just editing the highlights and shadows, which is harder to do, I admit.

[PhoebeG]

Best I cold figure out was to just back down the saturation, which diminished the blue shadows, but the image has lost its pop. Probably add a little more and compromise somewhere in the middle.

Old Clicker, I agree with your crop suggestion, it makes the image more "focued" if you will.

Thanks for the suggestions and input, I've learned a lot from you all on this one.

Phil G.