Day 157: Softball Sunday

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~70mm, f/4, 1/1250, ISO 250)

Originally scheduled for this day was a double header for Ekklesia, but heavy rain from the night before pounded the field (as I found out when I arrived at an empty field).  Unfortunately, no other parks were available to reschedule the first game, but the second one was luckily moved to another park nearby.  So game on it was!

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~70mm, f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 1000)

What was apparently a not-so close game (in favour of Ekklesia) seemed quite the opposite - several other players along with myself got caught up in the intensity of the game.  Shooting-wise, it was the same old stuff.  Though I found myself switching to Spot Metering in order to avoid having the camera overexpose the scene.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~160mm, f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 1600)

Keepin' it short.  There's still more photos to sift through, so hopefully more posts will come shortly.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 170mm, f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 1600)

Day 156: An Apple a Day...

(Nikon D90, 18-55 VR @ 18mm, f/5.6, 1/60, Flash @ TTL + 0.7 EV)

...keeps the soul in good spirits.  Well, that's if the apple in question is one from Duane Forrest.  This particular Saturday saw the release of Duane's first album: Apple in the Tree - Act 1: Chercher.  More after the break.

Day 155: "Free"dom of Choice

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/40, ISO 400)

Red or blue?  Which do you choose?

Day 154: Practice Thursday

(Nikon D90,Sigma 70-200 II @ 200mm, f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 800)

Talk about kicking the can... or... hitting it with a well-aimed throw!  T'was just another typical Practice Thursday, with both the infield and outfield running their respective drills.  Above is a drill for the outfielders, to help them with their aim.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 92mm, f/2.8, 1/800, ISO 800)

Above is Albert Kong, tossing a pitch during some hitting practice that was taking place for those who arrived early.  Despite the rain, the field held up relatively well, and showed no signs of puddling.  A few outfielders however did return with soggy socks.  Below is a drill being executed by some of the infielders, involving run-downs.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 92mm, f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 800)

Keepin' it short.  More soon.

Day 153: Coming of Age

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/60, ISO 800)

June 2nd marked the day in which my good friend Justin turned 19.  Though I couldn't stay too long downtown, I was able to hang around long enough to watch him legally purchase alcohol, much to the joy of all of us, including the cashier that carded ID him.

I left him in the good(?) hands of Andrei and Matt downtown... heading to a theatre.  I imagine the rest of his day unfolded pretty well - hope you had a good one Justin!

More to come.

Day 152: Lighting Up

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/60, ISO 200, Flash @ 1/10 Manual)

As blogged a few days back I picked up a Lastolite 24" x 24" Ezybox Hotshoe Softbox.  Lacking a human subject, I fell back on the next best option: Dojobear and company (Stomp on the left, Chomp on the right).  Despite the extra equipment involved, setup to shot to teardown took less than twenty minutes.  Setting up the softbox takes little to no effort, then it's a matter of sliding the flash in and popping away!  Light is positioned about half a meter back from the subjects, camera left.  Went with 1/32 power first, was way under exposed.  Tried 1/16 next.  Better, but 1/10 really hit the spot.  

I was a bit surprised that it took so little time.  I decided to pop off one additional shot, of my Sigma 70-200 that's been seeing a lot of use lately.  Stopped down a bit for the lens, and thus had to up the power too.

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 200, Flash @ 1/5 Manual)

More later today.

Day 151: Ultimate Mondays

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/2.8, 1/320, ISO 640)

So much for the rain, or lack thereof.  If one were to analogize my shooting performance over the last two days to tools, Monday would've been the X-Acto knife to Sunday's sledgehammer.  I came away with about a third of the number of shots, but more keepers percentage wise, and managed to catch most of the big plays, like the one above.  Chalk it up to being mentally alert, though I think I owe some credit to the players, who are constantly yelling advice to their teammates on the field.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 92mm, f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 400)

As mentioned, the rain held off leaving just some cloud cover.  Enough to cut a few stops of light, but certainly nothing that could threaten my equipment.  Just had to bump up the ISO a bit, and even at the higher ISOs the images still exposed quite well, minimizing the noise.  About the only thing I did differently in-camera was set my centre autofocus point to "Wide Zone" (Custom Settings Menu --> a2) which, as its name implies covers a wider area than usual.  Going to keep the text short for this one.  In exchange though, there's a couple more photos below! 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 130mm, f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 640)

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~70mm, f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 1250)