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Last night Jered Weaver of the Los Angeles Angels no hit the Minnesota Twins. Today’s photo is from a couple weeks ago when Weaver shutout my Oakland A’s in Anaheim. Weaver recorded his 1,000th career strikeout on that evening.
Watched my first high school softball game earlier this week at North Mountain Park.
This past Monday I went to the Angels – A’s game in Anaheim. After a strange play in which Albert had to chase down an A’s runner who was trying to avoid him for as long as possible so that the play didn’t turn into a double play, Weaver came over and made a little fun of how silly Pujols looked in the process.
Ashland was chosen as one of “The 20 Best Small Towns in America” by Smithsonian. But today’s photo comes not from Ashland but from one of the other 20 Best Small Towns, Laguna Beach. I took this photo of a Great Egret (Great White Heron) this past Sunday when I was exploring Laguna Beach.
This isn’t the first time Ashland has made one of these “Best of” lists. Ashland was previously chosen as one of the “Best Places to Retire” and “Best Places to Live” and “Best Ski Towns” and “Best Places to Thrive” and “Best Town Ever“.
Matt Kemp didn’t win the National League MVP last year, but that isn’t because he wasn’t the best. He came in second in the voting because he played for the Dodgers, and the Dodgers didn’t make the playoffs. On this evening, Kemp went 2 for 4 and scored a run. But on this pitch, a fastball from Jeff Karstens of the Pittsburgh Pirates, he swung…
… and missed.
On Saturday the SOU Raiders finished their home season with Senior Day. It was also Strike Out Breast Cancer Day so the team wore pink for that event.
Normally, when I’m shooting from behind the plate or near the dugout, I don’t even consider taking photos when the ball is hit to outfield. Instead, I’ll focus on a base where a play may be made. But from the right field foul pole, with the 1.7X teleconverter providing an effective 510mm (200mm x 1.7 x 1.5) on a crop sensor camera like the D7000, I figured I may as well see what happens.
I thought this ball was out of the park when it came off the bat. However, the wind was blowing in from center and right field.
Brooke Springer got a good jump and went straight back for the fence.
A leaping catch near the fence to haul it in!
Nice play, and she kept the runner from advancing as well.
Later this week I’m heading to a conference in Southern California. Along the way I plan to catch my first, ever game at Dodger Stadium and then witness my A’s (for the first time in many years live) at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on my way back. I have pretty good seats, but I thought I still may not be close enough for decent photography so I purchased a 1.7X teleconverter to go with my D7000 and 70-200m lens. It arrived earlier this week so I headed out yesterday to give it a try in a real setting.
Most photographers that buy a teleconverter do so to photograph birds. Bird photography isn’t too interesting to me so I was hoping that it would work OK for sports (outdoor anyway). The teleconverter increases the normal f/2.8 on my lens to f/4.8 which was a concern. In addition, even though photos at f/2.8 are sharp with just my 70-200mm, I had read that photos with the teleconverter don’t get sharp until f/7.1 or f/8.
I shot today’s top photo from the right field foul pole (probably 200-250 feet from the subject) at 340mm (200 x 1.7) at f/4.8 and 1/1000 of a second. The photo is pretty sharp, but Karlie Stephens’ right hand is a bit blurry so I should probably go up to 1/1250 or 1/1600. ISO was at only 280 so I can increase ISO some more. Only a very minor crop has been done to the image.
I can’t tell through the display screen how things are looking so I tried some experimenting. This next one was shot at 1/800 at f/8 (ISO 400) from the same location. Again, there is a slight crop on the image.
The ball is fuzzy so my shutter speed wasn’t fast enough.
In conclusion, it looks like the teleconverter works fine for outdoor sports. As far as aperture goes, f/4.8 doesn’t look as unsharp as I was expecting based on the reviews of others. If you want to really freeze the action, keep your shutter speed faster than 1/1000. ISO up to 800 or even 1600 shouldn’t be a problem on the D7000.
Stay tuned for some photos under the lights, which will likely present some additional factors to consider. The photos above were taken with overcast skies.
Jordyn Kurtz pitching for the SOU Raiders
The SOU Women’s Softball Team has doubleheaders Saturday and Sunday. I’m off to California for a few days so I will miss them.
