Fenced In -- OUT!

Nice day in Grove City for GCC Baseball the other day -- albeit a bit cool. Took the D300 and my Nikon 80-400 AF-VR f/4.5-5.6 lens to the game. With the hood on, I just leaned on the fence and shot away, high-speed. An ISO of 640 was giving me 1/1000 sec. at f/8 so I turned off VR (vibration reduction.) I'm told that VR > 1/500 sec. slows down the image capture. Shooting through the fence (see it behind) did not hinder me. Got some good shots that day -- a different one of Cory here was used on the GCC sports Website. Same exposure data on the shot below (he was OUT!), but the focal length was only 86mm -- I cropped this image for a closer look.

Also sharpened it using the Unsharp Mask:

I've concluded that my 70-200 AF-VR f/2.8 is best for basketball, and the 80-400 with its reach is better for baseball. It's fast enough in good light, although I wish it were an AF-S lens for faster focus!

Exposure Compensation in Mercer

Exposure compensation could be described as overriding your camera's setting for a particular image exposure. You decide to capture a longer exposure (+) or shorter (-) one. How that's done depends upon your camera model -- read your manual!

I believe this building is called the Mercer County Courthouse Annex. With the back-lit sky, this initial shot (Nikon d300, Nikkor 70-300mm AF-S VR f4.5-5.6 G lens @ 70mm, 1/200 sec @ f/7.1) was a bit dark compared to what I saw. SO, I used exposure compensation of +0.7 (1/125 sec @ f/5.6) to get the shot following -- a more accurate depiction of what I saw:

I also tried center-weighted metering to see what I would get:

Too bright -- and insufficient contrast. Exposure compensation is your friend!

Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight

Shot this image on BonnyBrook Road, east of Butler, PA. Just stopped, ran the window down and fired. Actually, I set the white balance to Sunlight and used -1 exposure compensation; Nikon D300, Nikkor 50mm AF f/1.8 lens, ISO 200, 1/160 sec @ f/6.3, Vivid+. Sunlight White Balance gives me the most accurate light for magic hours.