I made it out to a couple of high school regional girls softball games on Saturday between Unity Christian and Sparta. These are all shots from the first game won by Unity 4-3 with 2 runs in the bottom of the seventh. The pitcher for Sparta hit 2 home runs in the losing effort. I'm always open to comment/critique and thanks for taking a look.
1. Unity Christian pitcher
2. Home run trot after her first homer of the day.
3. Sparta High School pitcher.
4. Home run swing for the second time in the game.
Tim, welcome to the Sports Corner. You can learn a ton here by looking at the photos and reading the critiques of what works and what doesn't work. The guys and girls here will catch everything.
Paul, I got the same feedback about the levels adjustment from MP. I tightened them up on the backlit ones, but that was after these had been posted. Thanks for the comments.
Sharp shots. I like bat on ball the best!
I find i get a lot of shots like #3, where the brightness seems to wash out blacks and "pop" in the colors. Do you try to rectify this much in editing?
P Alesse wrote:
Looks good. Maybe tighten up those levels on the backlit shots for more contrast.
Are there any tricks to rectifying this in the camera settings rather that doing a crap load of editing post shooting? For baseball I always find myself adding blacks and contrast to get those colors back...
Kris, the "washed out" look happens because the player is slightly overexposed, see #3. This happens with backlit subjects when the meter is trying to expose for the entire scene. Try spot metering the player instead of matrix metering the entire frame. You could also try dialing in a little negative exposure compensation. A levels or contrast adjustment in post is going to give a better final result though, because you will have more precise control. I'm not sure which is more trouble, post processing or constantly fiddling with the EC dial.
