I'm no Rutt, but... here is some Girls LL

[Shakey]

Some girls baseball shots from tonight. Last league game of the season , they went undefeated. Still its still all for fun at this level and it is very refreshing.

I know they are not as good as Rutts but I believe it is my birthright to take up bandwidth.

[wxwax]

The last two. The runner has a really nice smile on her face. And the three shot at the end is very sweet.

[damonff]

I'm with Sid. I love the last one.

Originally Posted by wxwax

The last two. The runner has a really nice smile on her face. And the three shot at the end is very sweet.

[rutt]

Originally Posted by damonff

I'm with Sid. I love the last one.

Yes, very nice. Isn't it a relief to take candids after trying to get baseball action? Most of my best LL shots this season were candid portraits.

#2 and #3 have potential. What about cropping #3 vertically, just right of the pitcher? I don't think the off level fence is adding anything here. If you really want to get ambitious, try to extract the runner and g-blur the background. It takes some doing to get this right. See my post on the topic from a month or so ago, but it's great once you learn how.

#2 would be improved by cloing out the fielder's feet in the upper right. Maybe some cropping as well to make it as veritcally tight as horizontally tight?

It's really hard to have the camera oriented the right way - vertical vs horizontal. #2 wanted vertical but you had horizontal. Visa versa for #3. This always happens to me. In the end I decided to use vertical almost always and try to switch to horizontal only for slides. It would also be good for diving fielding plays, but doing that requires true reflexes.

I am really in awe of the best baseball photographers. I think it's one of the most challenging subjects there is.

[ginger_55]

[QUOTE=rutt]Yes, very nice. Isn't it a relief to take candids after trying to get baseball action? Most of my best LL shots this season were candid portraits.

#2 and #3 have potential. What about cropping #3 vertically, just right of the pitcher? I don't think the off level fence is adding anything here. If you really want to get ambitious, try to extract the runner and g-blur the background. It takes some doing to get this right. See my post on the topic from a month or so ago, but it's great once you learn how.
_______________________________________

In your post "on it", what do you mean by "clone out" before the blur? Please explain, I don't understand the phrase, know what the clone tool is, use it all the time now, but "clone out?".

Also, I suppose I can figure the gradient out on my own. Looks good. Thanks, ginger

[rutt]

Originally Posted by ginger_55

In your post "on it", what do you mean by "clone out" before the blur? Please explain, I don't understand the phrase, know what the clone tool is, use it all the time now, but "clone out?".

The idea is to blur the background but not the foreground (in this case the players) just as if you were using a lower aperature to get less DOF when you shot. The obvious way to do this is to have a layer with the extracted players over the original and then blur the original. This works fine, but it has a problem. When you blur the original, the players are blurred beyond their original borders and this shows up as a sort of halo around the extracted play in the uppermost layer. Ugly. The solution is to use the clone tool to get rid of the players in the original (bottommost) layer before you blur it. You can do a really sloppy job of this because 1. a heavy blur is going to be applied and 2. the uppermost layerer with the extracted players is going to cover it up anyway. Capice?

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by Shakey

Nice image, but would be a bit better if the camera tilt was the other way. Girl looks like she is running uphill. Downhill looks faster. :)


[/u]

Nice candid! These are the type of pictures that tell a story.

[GREAPER]

[QUOTE=Shakey]Some girls baseball shots from tonight. Last league game of the season , they went undefeated. Still its still all for fun at this level and it is very refreshing.

I know they are not as good as Rutts but I believe it is my birthright to take up bandwidth.



She throws like a girl

[Shakey]

Thanks for the input everyone .Following rutts advice I did the blur thing and some straightening. I also have a vertical crop version.







And here is a crop.






Thanks for your help everyone.


Tim

[rutt]

Originally Posted by Shakey

Thanks for the input everyone .Following rutts advice I did the blur thing and some straightening. I also have a vertical crop version.







And here is a crop.






Thanks for your help everyone.


Tim

Very nice. Is she your daughter?

[wxwax]

The vertical crop works really well.