Quote: Originally Posted by
Patrick Sun 
Just to set the record straight: only the white balance was in AUTO mode for most of the afternoon since I had no idea I would not be able to check for image quality on the LCD in bright sunlight. Lesson learned. For actual shooting mode, I was mainly in Tv mode, and then later in the last hour I was shooting in manual mode (which didn't make much difference since my lens's max aperture was 5.6 at the longer end of the lens). I played around with ISO settings as well to deal with exposure issues from the shadowing of the stadium lighting as the afternoon gave way towards evening.
Aaaah... That makes sense now. In regular daylight, I tend to just leave my camera in Auto WB also (w/ a slight tweak as Nikon allows). But I should say that I'm not the type to go for "accuracy" as much as the look I personally want in the shot -- and I do usually shoot RAW and PP the photo later, if I care about the final result at all. If I were shooting for pro commercial use, particularly for product shots and formals, then concerns about "accuracy" would be different, but honestly, I find that stuff rather boring for the most part. 
Then again, if you looked at the photos and thought I was totally in AUTO shooting mode I guess I wasn't doing much interersting with the shots. Heh.
Well, to be honest, there really isn't a whole lot one can do for those kinds of long-ish tele shots (at least the ones I saw), especially w/ a consumer kit lens. If you wanted interesting (beyond the long distance photojournalistic type stuff), you'd need to go for some very different types of shots and still possibly tell a story about an afternoon at the ballpark.
Actually, I didn't notice, but did you get any of a concession vendor plying his trade nearby for instance? Get some of people doing the wave or some other similar thing (either for the pattern formed or perhaps more isolated on individuals, if there's something interesting going on), however feeble the wave/etc. attempts might be (and try doing it w/ an interesting POV that maybe somehow incorporates the ballgame at hand)? 
Those are certainly things one can look for in a typical ballgame. Maybe get an interesting closeup image of some concession (or whatever baseball toy/prop in action) w/ shallow DoF (or not) given the game/stadium backdrop.
Move around the ballpark to find interesting shots, if photography is what you actually want to do there. Don't rely on the tele to shoot over long distances. Get closer in on the action/object/scene whatever it might be whether you end up going long-ish or wide. Contrary to what many people assume, the best, most interesting people photos are usually shot close up, not from far away, if that's what you're after. And if you cannot get closer, you're gonna be severely limited in what you can actually do w/ the camera and lens -- there just aren't enough control over physics to make it a lot more interesting.
As far as compositional issue, yes, most of what Man said was fair. But in the back of my mind, those issues can be cropped away if I found a decent keeper or two. Also, sports photography is a little different in terms of setting up a for shot. I was just happy I had a camera without much shutter lag, something I struggled with when I used the point-n-shoot compact-zoom digital cameras. Sometimes you just try and get a shot really quickly, and, of course, it looks a little haphazard, but I was enjoying the extra bit of shooting speed over my previous digital cameras, so it was more experimentation with the capabilities of the dSLR, even if the setup wasn't ideal. I will keep compositional thoughts in my head for future sporting events.
Actually, I wasn't talking so much about shooting the ball players in action as about the other photos included in that gallery. I've seen enough of ball players in action in SI, on ESPN, etc. and since you cannot actually get close enough to matter -- and that's just the fact of the matter, nothing against you at all -- such photos can only get so interesting most of time, IMHO.
Remember, composition is not only about how you shoot something over there from where you stand right now (and how you crop it afterward). It also has a whole lot to do w/ what and when you choose to shoot and where you choose to shoot it from (among other factors). If you don't see what you want, you don't have to shoot. Look for a different shot (of whatever it may be). Move a whole lot if you need to. There are way too many photo opps out there to limit yourself to just shooting something over there from where you stand right now.
Of course, if you only want to shoot some ball players in action, you're gonna be severely limited in what you can do since you can only get so close (and will therefore need to move a zillion miles just to get a different look).
What sort of frustrates me about shooting in portrait orientation is that it's not quite WYSIWYG through the viewfinder, so I end up having to compensate to aiming a little to the left if I want something centered in portrait mode. But it's something I'm learning to automatically compensate for in that shooting orientation. When I shoot in landscape mode, the non-WYSIWYG top and bottom issue isn't as pronounced as it is in portrait mode.
That's where cropping comes in handy. Assuming your viewfinder is not showing way too little of the actual shot, it should only require a little bit of cropping to get rid of the extraneous stuff. For that, you can probably even just run a batch job or two to auto-crop the extraneous stuff.
However, since in truth, there really are only so many true keepers -- ones you want to show people -- you're probably gonna end up wanting to polish up the image in one way or another anyway whether it be a slight-to-moderate color/contrast/exposure tweak or cropping or whatever else.
I'm not sure I enjoy the post-processing process, so I may not get as much out of the hobby as more serious photogs, but I accept that. Shooting in RAW results in large file sizes, which goes against my years of habit when it comes to keeping all my photos (crappy and not-so-crappy) since they were in the smaller JPEG format and it wasn't as much of a hard drive space issue in the past. Now, that will change, and I won't be able to afford to keep all my RAW photos (sure, hard drive space is cheap, but file management/upkeep are still upcoming headaches). This is totally a personal issue, hopefully, I'll be better at letting crappy shoots go, but I learn from crappy shoots as well (as to what not to do in terms of settings and composition, so they have their place at times).
Yah, we all go thru that continually and endlessly me thinks -- at least us amateurs anyway.
If you thought 85 photos were too many, just be grateful I didn't post all 550+ photos from that afternoon.
Actually, for that, I'll blame it partially on Sam's initial comment as I didn't keep track myself. Still, you'll learn in time that even 85 photos is a lot to present from one session unless you're some sort of photog deity. I remember reading one article about SI's coverage of the SuperBowl from some years back when the Canon 1D (in all its 4MP glory running at 8fps IIRC) was being introduced to the world at that very event -- it was not available for sale yet. They mentioned shooting a few tens of thousands of frames w/ maybe a dozen bodies/photogs from a wide range of stadium locations only to produce the small batch of shots that make it into the magazine just in time for release the very next morning.
Of course, that's a rather extreme case, even though it may be common enough practice for SI, et al.
Here's part of that old article (after a quick google):
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6453-6821
I enjoy the story-telling/editing photo-album process, moreso that just getting a few "keeper" shots from an entire afternoon, again, just different viewpoints in terms of photography. Once I get a more autonomic feel of the controls, perhaps I'll veer from quantity towards quality, but I think I'm a few years away from such grokkage.
Oh, it wasn't meant to be a criticism about that particular style/approach toward photography. I do a fair amount of that myself too -- and I do like quality photojournalism as well (and that was something that actually got me interested enough to take the leap to get a Nikon D70 as soon as it came out even though I only started treating photography as a hobby for less than a year at that point). And I also very much enjoy the process of (seeing and) shooting itself, and the final results (in actual photos) often end up being rather secondary -- I guess in that sense it's probably a bit like hunting (or fishing) though I've never actually done that before.
And to be honest, after giving a couple tries (or three) w/ camcorders, I find I actually very much prefer to shoot stills to tell a story (perhaps in a slideshow-like format) rather than shoot video. (Amateur) Videography, in practice, is just waaaay too limited, IMHO, especially since I'm not some aspiring young filmmaker looking to run an operation that involves a relative multitude of people, sets, props, etc.
But yeah, there's definitely something to be said for variety, especially when it comes to an artform (of sorts) even if we as amateurs may not necessarily treat it as art or anything lofty like that.
Sorry for all the blathering, not trying to sound defensive, just offering my mindset, in spite of my noviceness. I will endeavor to take more time when the situations allow it.
No worries. As I'm sure you're aware by now, I blather regularly myself too, especially on topics like these.
It's all part of how we can learn from/with one another afterall -- and this is a discussion forum afterall.
