City - Chicago State - ILLINOIS Country - United States
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We went to the White Sox game against the Seattle Mariners at U.S. Cellular Field on August 6th and had fantastic 8th row seats right at the third base. Under blue sky it was a perfect spot for the 70-210mm to catch a lot of game action as well as audience excitement. It was most fun, though, to study the pitchers and to capture their unique styles.
The D70 is fast enough to take several pictures per pitch and, with the help of "The GNU Image Manipulation Program - GIMP" post processing software, I have assembled a few pitching studies images. Hope you like this series of White Sox and Mariners pitchers in frozen action. As always, any feedback is very welcome.
The first pitcher for the Mariners was Jamie Moyer. He had an interesting style of "landing with both feet together". His player card can be found at http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=3932 and the game stats at http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=250806104.
Details for all three pictures: Aperture: f5.6, shutter: 1/400s, focal length: 210mm, no flash, no tripod.
Thank you for looking and commenting, Mark. I have the 70-210 for about a year now. It was used as well and probably 8 to 10 years old (though I don?t know that for sure).
It is a great lens and very sharp (as long as you stay close to 1/200s or faster or use the tripod). Focus is slower than the 18-70 AF-S that was part of the D70 Outfit.
I am thinking about getting the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G AF-S VR Zoom now. I tried it out a couple of weeks ago and, while much heavier than the 70-210, it is very fast in focus and the VR is just amazing. Sharp images at slow shutter speeds. I can also use the 2x teleconverter to make it a decent 140mm to 400mm. at f5.6
Hey man, what a great idea and really well executed. These are awesome. You did a fine job of digital manipulation, they are seamless. How do you like the 70-210? I just bought one off ebay but I don't have it yet.
Yeah, I agree with the poster thing. Get Clemens, even, or some others that are having really good years. These would be great. Get them to the kids at the game for autographs. They'd become collectibles.
You're right about slight differences, though you caught them at slightly different positions in the throw. It does emphasize that the pitcher sort of runs with the ball to accelerate that fast. Moyer does seem to use his torso/back a little more, instead of stretching so far.
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{K:8529} 8/17/2005
