soydios
Platinum Member
Whew, I just finished an extremely busy weekend of photography (make that busy in general, but with all fun events).
First, on Saturday morning, I took headshots for a theater musical production I'm a part of. Photos were taken with my D50, SB-800, and 50mm f/1.8D (at f/2.8). Since I only have one flash but needed a second light source, I used light coming through a window from the cloudy day outdoors for the subject's right side, and bounced my SB-800 with diffuser off of a wall for the subject's left side. I wish I had another two SB-600s, one to have used flash off the wall to the subject's right side, and one from behind and above the subject.
Guy 1
Gal 1
Then the photography-related highlight of my weekend: I got to shoot a basketball game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It was also my first extended time with the university newspaper's D2H bodies. I used an AF-S 300/2.8 and AF-S 70-200/2.8VR, at 1/640th f/2.8 ISO1000. The D2H is an amazing camera, especially compared to what I'm used to and in light of the fact that it's 5 years old. It was a new way of shooting for me; I'm used to waiting until just before the perfect moment to hit the shutter on my D50. But on a D2H on Continuous-High, aka "betcha can't take just one mode", you can just mash the shutter release and cruise at 8fps for five seconds straight, with minimal viewfinder blackout and full continuous AF tracking, though you do have to sort through those in post. On the topic of D2 autofocus: whoa. So many options! I didn't figure them all out until I got a break to sit down again at halftime. There's group modes, distance priorities, release priority, etc. Eh, I suppose some of you own a camera like that, but it was my first time. Sadly the newspaper's AF-S 28-70/2.8 autofocus is dying from abuse and doesn't focus fast enough for basketball, so the other photog with the 1DmkIIn and 24-70/2.8 was under the Duke offensive basket both halves for dunk shots, and I was on the Duke defensive side with the long lenses. IMHO, the ideal kit for a cropped-frame body (Nikon 1.5x or Canon 1.3x/1.6x) would be a 24- or 28-70mm and a 70-200mm; a full-frame body (D3, 1Ds) would be 70-200mm and 300mm. It would be nice for post-processing crops to have more than 4 megapixels either way, though.
Duke Blue Devils
team captain DeMarcus Nelson 3pt
Lance Thomas freethrow <-- cool net swish
dunk defense <-- oh, Jon Scheyer and his facial expressions
Coach Mike Krzyzweski <-- from 20ft away, I can tell you this: he swears. a lot.
opponent free throw
layup defense
Then on Sunday, after recuperating from several events on Saturday night after the BBall game, I was offered and quickly took another opportunity for more time with the D2H, but this time with the AF-S 400mm f/2.8. The 400mm really comes into its own in large-field sports, especially on a cropped-frame body, because either you can reach out to the far corners of the field or get in real close to the faces nearby. Oddly, the D2H kept autofocusing on the wall behind home plate when shooting from across the field, even when set on Closest Subject Priority. But it worked perfectly from behind the dugouts, so I dunno. I just set the matrix metering on -1/2 stop exposure compensation in Aperture-priority mode (f/4 ISO640), because the cloud cover kept changing. Sadly the ~1/1000th shutter speeds were not fast enough to freeze the baseball or bat.
outfielder
first relief pitcher
First, on Saturday morning, I took headshots for a theater musical production I'm a part of. Photos were taken with my D50, SB-800, and 50mm f/1.8D (at f/2.8). Since I only have one flash but needed a second light source, I used light coming through a window from the cloudy day outdoors for the subject's right side, and bounced my SB-800 with diffuser off of a wall for the subject's left side. I wish I had another two SB-600s, one to have used flash off the wall to the subject's right side, and one from behind and above the subject.
Guy 1
Gal 1
Then the photography-related highlight of my weekend: I got to shoot a basketball game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It was also my first extended time with the university newspaper's D2H bodies. I used an AF-S 300/2.8 and AF-S 70-200/2.8VR, at 1/640th f/2.8 ISO1000. The D2H is an amazing camera, especially compared to what I'm used to and in light of the fact that it's 5 years old. It was a new way of shooting for me; I'm used to waiting until just before the perfect moment to hit the shutter on my D50. But on a D2H on Continuous-High, aka "betcha can't take just one mode", you can just mash the shutter release and cruise at 8fps for five seconds straight, with minimal viewfinder blackout and full continuous AF tracking, though you do have to sort through those in post. On the topic of D2 autofocus: whoa. So many options! I didn't figure them all out until I got a break to sit down again at halftime. There's group modes, distance priorities, release priority, etc. Eh, I suppose some of you own a camera like that, but it was my first time. Sadly the newspaper's AF-S 28-70/2.8 autofocus is dying from abuse and doesn't focus fast enough for basketball, so the other photog with the 1DmkIIn and 24-70/2.8 was under the Duke offensive basket both halves for dunk shots, and I was on the Duke defensive side with the long lenses. IMHO, the ideal kit for a cropped-frame body (Nikon 1.5x or Canon 1.3x/1.6x) would be a 24- or 28-70mm and a 70-200mm; a full-frame body (D3, 1Ds) would be 70-200mm and 300mm. It would be nice for post-processing crops to have more than 4 megapixels either way, though.
Duke Blue Devils
team captain DeMarcus Nelson 3pt
Lance Thomas freethrow <-- cool net swish
dunk defense <-- oh, Jon Scheyer and his facial expressions
Coach Mike Krzyzweski <-- from 20ft away, I can tell you this: he swears. a lot.
opponent free throw
layup defense
Then on Sunday, after recuperating from several events on Saturday night after the BBall game, I was offered and quickly took another opportunity for more time with the D2H, but this time with the AF-S 400mm f/2.8. The 400mm really comes into its own in large-field sports, especially on a cropped-frame body, because either you can reach out to the far corners of the field or get in real close to the faces nearby. Oddly, the D2H kept autofocusing on the wall behind home plate when shooting from across the field, even when set on Closest Subject Priority. But it worked perfectly from behind the dugouts, so I dunno. I just set the matrix metering on -1/2 stop exposure compensation in Aperture-priority mode (f/4 ISO640), because the cloud cover kept changing. Sadly the ~1/1000th shutter speeds were not fast enough to freeze the baseball or bat.
outfielder
first relief pitcher
