Softball

All posts tagged Softball

Sports á la NEX-7

Posted by Matthew Durr on April 24, 2013
Posted in: Sports Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

It seems that every year, spring sports season comes and goes with such an undecided vigor. Much like spring weather, one week it’ll be cold and dreary with only a single game to shoot, whereas the following week brings warm weather and a multitude of home games. This past weekend fit into the latter category, sporting generally warm temperatures with five games to photograph in four days (three on Saturday, one on Sunday, another on Tuesday). Needless to say, my shutter count—and eye fatigue—went up tremendously in a short amount of time.

I figure a good exercise to keep from over-saturating this post with too many photographs is to cull four of my best photographs from each game: 2 baseball, 1 softball, 1 tennis, 1 lacrosse. Let’s see what I dig up. All captured with the Sony NEX-7 and Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED or Nikon 85mm f/1.4 AI-s. P.S. A good number of these are in the 2:1 crop ratio. Since this is how my images are sent in to my supervisor for displaying, I usually shoot with this in mind.

Wind-Up 300mm, ISO 200, f/4, 1/2000

Wind-Up
300mm, ISO 200, f/4, 1/2000

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HUGE Weekend Update: Light-Painting, Macro, Sports, Squirrels, and a Panorama!

Posted by Matthew Durr on March 24, 2013
Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments
Blooming105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/640

Blooming
105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/640
Now that plants are starting to bloom (though this technically is a weed), I will be able to get much more sample shots for when I can make time for the 105mm f/2.8 Micro AI-s review.

To make a long story short, I am in a bittersweet mood about my NEX-7 finally being back in my hands. I’m happy I finally have a “real” camera again, but am a little disappointed that A)The sensor cleaning function still doesn’t seem to work and B)The rear LCD turned out to be peeling when I took the plastic off (when I sent it in, the rear LCD was immaculate). I believe Sony has sent me a refurbished NEX-7, instead of my own camera. Not too keen on getting back a camera in worse shape than when I sent it in for repair, so I’ll be contacting them this week to see what the deal is.

But in the meantime, I’ve been busy! I photographed everything from tiny flowers to the sky this past week and managed to shake off my “camera blues” from not having my NEX-7 for over three weeks.

First up, I learned a little bit more about light painting in my photography class. Though I feel this genre is overdone and cliqué in many ways, I tried to be as original as possible Continue Reading

Lens Review–Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED

Posted by Matthew Durr on August 3, 2012
Posted in: Lens/Camera Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 52 Comments

What a monster…

Many have called me a retro pioneer, others, a glutton for punishment. Either way you may feel about my choice on using manual-focus lenses for sports photography (and photography in general), the Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED is highly capable of some stunning photographs, even on today’s digital cameras.

Lenses such as this in the “exotic” category have been hyped up enough on their own with their fast apertures and long focal lengths (and cost at the time of release), so instead let’s move onto the main review!

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“First” Impressions—Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED

Posted by Matthew Durr on July 24, 2012
Posted in: Lens/Camera Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

THE BIG ONE

And this is with the hood retracted…

Well, I’ve finally gotten around to taking an in-depth look at my favorite lens, the monstrous Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED. This optic is not one to mess around with. Weighing in at over five and a half pounds, this 10+ inch chunk of metal and glass is NOT a walk-around lens (unless you are an odd body-building photographer). Just as how macro lenses are built to do particularly well up-close and wide-angle lenses do their best with landscapes, the 300mm f/2.8 is a special-purpose lens. If you have just now started following this site, I spent much of this past spring doing sports photography primarily with this 450mm field-of-view super telephoto . The fast (and useable) maximum aperture keeps ISOs down and shutter speeds high, freezing the action with less digital noise. And yes, sports photography with manual-focus equipment is even easier nowadays with great focus-assisting technologies. Other applications of this lens on APS-C could be tight head-shots and even a bit of close-up birding (good luck sneaking up on them). On m4/3, this lens would have a 600mm super telephoto field-of-view, great for birding and other wildlife.

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Sports Hiatus, no more!

Posted by Matthew Durr on May 10, 2012
Posted in: General News, Sports Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

Many apologies! I didn’t realize just how busy and caught up I have been lately, falling behind with keeping this blog up to date and on schedule. As such, I’ll let you all in on a little roadmap for new posts–a preview of sorts–before I get into the pictures below:

I’ll be posting some first impressions of the Nikon 105mm f/1.8 AI-s with the NEX-7 here in a couple of days before the review.

Next, will come a final post from the last baseball game of the season.

Following that, some ramblings I have planned out.

Finally, the full technical review of the 105mm f/1.8, here and/or at photojottings.com.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, let’s get to some shots from the last softball game this year (captioned by yours truly)!

Get your game face on!

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More on the way? You bet!

Posted by Matthew Durr on May 4, 2012
Posted in: Sports Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Busy and overwhelmed with editing and printing (among class work), so my reviews will not be coming as quickly as I had originally hoped. My full softball set may not even be up for you all until Sunday. 😦

I do not want to just leave you hanging until then, so, as with the last baseball preview, here’s just a taste of what you may see late this weekend.

Full Contact

Until then, have a great one guys. Trying to get caught up as fast as I can. 🙂

Sports Photography and the NEX-7

Posted by Matthew Durr on April 30, 2012
Posted in: General News, Sports Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

In case you were interested (which you should be!), hop right on over to Steve Huff’s site, the article I have been working on for the past few weeks is up, ready, and roaring to go. See HERE. I have to thank Steve greatly for publishing this.

In other news, still busy with editing and printing baseball pictures. Tomorrow or Wednesday, I should have a set posted from a recent softball game, for everyones’ viewing pleasure. 🙂

As always, have a great one guys. Life is good.

Getting Started with Sports Photography

Posted by Matthew Durr on April 16, 2012
Posted in: Sports Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

Welcome to a new adventure I have embarked on, maintaining a photography blog! Keeping this post short and sweet, and leaving you all with a few of my best photographs I’ve taken so far. One thing I will go for here is quality well over quantity. If I don’t have a picture that blows me away personally, I won’t bother boring you with it. Photos posted here will all have to be cracker-jacks in my book! Just a small bit of background, I’m an upstart sports, event, and general freelance photographer based in Lexington, Kentucky who is hitting the ground running fast in photography. Will write more posts as photographs trickle in. Thanks for looking, and have a great week.

And of course, to be updated on future posts from my photo walks and sports events, make sure to follow me or add yourself to my e-mail list! New post going up tomorrow with a few other hand-picked favorites over the past month.