Sometimes you nail the image and sometimes you are so far off that you have to give up.
Then there are those in between times where you screwed up the shot, but it is close enough that you can hammer it back into something acceptable.
This shot of the hawk lies in that group. It had a bad motion blur, but hitting it hard with FocusMagic got it to where it is an acceptable web image. I don’t think I will try printing it.
Ricky Guerrero making contact.With pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training tomorrow, there is a baseball buzz in the air. Of course, the colleges started their seasons last week. While I missed Monterey Peninsula College’s home opener last week I wasn’t going to miss their second home game. And after this morning’s game, I have managed to double the number of ball games that I went to last year.
For those of you interested in just the baseball, the MPC Lobos started the season with five wins. They lost their first game this morning. Most of the wins were come-from-behind affairs with the winning runs scored in the ninth or extra innings. Their defense has been a little shaky, with 5 errors in the last 2 games. The Lobos have shown that they have the offense to overcome the errors, but it would be better not to make them in the first place.
Now let’s get back to photography. Every ball field is different and you need to learn where the good sight lines are for shooting the game. College fields are generally bad for shooting because they are surrounded by chain link fencing. You can shoot straight on through the fence at distant objects, but if you are trying to catch action at an angle through the fence, forget it.
Starting Pitcher Rob Kovach, through the netting.In contrast, Minor League stadiums will have netting behind the batter, but only low fencing around the rest of the seating area (the same is true of Major League stadiums).
When I shoot Minor League games, I can park myself down the first or third base line and have an unencumbered view of nearly any play in the infield. I can shoot the batters in the box from either side (depending on whether they were batting right or left). I can shoot the play at first base (the most common play in baseball).
The way the MPC ball field is situated, however, these shots are impossible to get. There are basically two places where you can get unencumbered shots.
The first is at the net behind home plate, shooting through the net is not an encumbrance if you are close enough to it. This is a good place to shoot the pitchers, though you are a little too far behind the batters to get a good shot. My biggest concern about shooting here is making sure that I am not in the sight line of a fan watching the game. This is a place to move in take a few shots and move on.
Max Price delivers a caught stealing out.The second is behind the outfield fence. This is a new one for me, because most Minor League stadiums that I have been to, don’t have seating or viewing out there. They have a big wall with advertising plastered across it. MPC has through the chain link viewing in right field, but in left field you can get above the fence and have a clear view of the field.
The outfield sight lines are exciting because I’m getting to see action that I never did before. You can get batters facing you, and get an entirely different perspective on plays at second base (where before I only saw the back of runners heads, now I see their faces and expression. And I don’t need to struggle to get shots of the outfielders.
So once again, baseball season’s come around and once again, I’m having fun with it.
Dunlin with Sanderlings – 2011On occasion, I realize that I am more interested in taking pictures of birds than identifying them and adding them to my life list. While I carry a field guide and pair of binoculars with me, I am somewhat loath to pull them out and spend the time figuring out what I am seeing.
I would much rather catch them in a provocative pose that I can sell than figure out if they are consenting adults or first-offense juveniles.
Least Sandpiper – 2011Nowhere is this ambivalence clearer then when I am shooting peeps, those little shorebirds that never quite let me get close enough to ID them. Perhaps if I were more patient and had a steadier hand, I could define the niceties of plumage to identify a 8″ bird at 100′.
But no, I can only discern gross differences in size and color at 100′. So I use my camera to capture the details. The shape of the bill, the color of the legs, whether the breast is spotted or white. All of the little things a good birder picks up, I let my camera grab.
Yes, you might say that I am lazy.
Spotted Sandpiper – 2011Except for the fact that I then spend hours going over the photos, wading through field guides, discerning the subtleties, and narrowing everything down to an ID.
Because in the end, no matter what I said at the outset of this post, identifying the birds that I shoot is important to me. I really want to know what peep I saw at the beach today.
Lesser Goldfinch – 2011I have a feeder that I keep stocked with an assortment of seeds. It draws an assortment of birds, some that I don’t usually see in my typical bird photography adventures.
If I shoot birds around the feeder, am I cheating? It is a valid question, because I try to capture birds in a reasonably natural setting, so having a plastic bin full of seeds defeats that.
But feeders attract birds and that is what I am trying to shoot.
And if I don’t get out on a birding trip? Well, it is time to confess, the Band-tailed Pigeon, was a feeder shot. While they are around, they don’t usually come in close enough to get a shot like that.
So what about this week’s “Bird of the Week” entry:
Red-shouldered Hawk – 2011
While it was a couple hundred feet from the feeder, was it drawn to the area by the abundance of birds at the feeder? They are common in the area, so probably not, but…
Anyway, I will try to limit my feeder shots and in the future tell you when a shot was taken near the feeder.
Sometimes, you don’t get the shot, but the experience is what matters.
Yesterday I was shooting at Kirby Park on Elkhorn Slough. Throughout the day I had been fighting focusing issues. When trying to focus on a distant object against the sky, the camera tries to focus on something close but nonexistent.
Yes, I should switch to manual, but I am just not that fast anymore.
Then I see two birds coming toward me. Hello, who are you, I look through the viewfinder and it goes from sharp to fuzzy. Less than a second later there is a swoosh, swoosh as two falcons pull up out of dives within fifteen feet of me. I think they were going for swallows.
I watched them as they headed off across the tide flats hunting and diving as they went.
It would have been a cool shot, but even my camera isn’t going to catch a falcon coming towards you that fast.
All I have is the experience of falcons flying so close and fast that you can hear the wind on their wings.
I can live with that.
Tracks, Elkhorn Slough – 2008Most of my photography is spontaneous. I might have an idea of what I am going to shoot, when I head down the Big Sur coast, I am going to try to shoot condors. But I don’t usually have a shot in mind.
Yesterday was different, I found myself at the right spot at the right time to get a shot that I have wanted for a couple of years.
Elkhorn Slough is a wonderful place for birding that I try to get to a couple time a year. But running through the middle of it is one of the main north south railroads in California. And every day, around noon, the Coast Starlight rumbles over the tracks.
I have taken shots of the tracks and of the train, but always wanted to get one with a train coming down the tracks. And I finally had my opportunity.
Now standing on the tracks before an oncoming train is not something you do lightly. And while I was shooting with my long lens and was well away from the tracks by the time the train arrived, you will notice that I was not perfectly centered on the tracks. I was inching my way off as I shot.
Playing chicken with a train is not my idea of fun.
Coast Starlight, Elkhorn Slough – 2011
I will tell you a little secret, I generally crop my images. Often, this is out of necessity, because you can only get so close to some birds. Other times, however, you just capture more so you can make decisions about the final image.
Case in point, this shot of Tyler Skaggs. I really like the final image, but getting to it required some trade offs.
Usually cropping a bird photo is easy. You don’t have extraneous details to work out. Often it depends on aesthetics, cropping relative to background lighting, the angles of branches, where things come into the image, and the like.
But with a sports shot, you often have people in the background. And I don’t like cutting people in half, lopping off arms, legs, heads, etc. You may think that silly, because it is all in the background of the shot. But I don’t like doing it.
Sometimes, however, you have no choice and you just have to pick the crop and where to make the cut.
So I apologize to everyone in this shot who’s head is missing. If I could have gotten you in the shot and retained the image’s strength, I would have.
I shot my first baseball game of the season the other night. It was the California/Carolina League All Star Game. The best Single A advanced kids from both coasts.
Shooting a night game is always a challenge. Once the sun goes down, you never have enough light to shoot at speeds that capture the action. So you up the ISO and hope that the images don’t get too grainy. Even then you are stuck shooting at 1/100th of a second.
So you try to work with what you can. Capture the pitchers face and let the arm be a blur. Shoot batters as they’re set for a pitch and don’t try to catch the swing.
You can play with the images a bit afterwards. But there is only so much noise that you can remove before the image is blurry. And do you tinker with the white balance because of the lights, or just live with that yellow tinge?
After a while, you realize that it is best just to put the camera down and enjoy the game.