9th Inning Dilemma
Last night I shot UM Baseball’s 6-3 loss to FAU. I also shot FAU Baseball’s 6-3 victory over UM.
Huh?
Such is the dilemma when you’re the team photographer for both schools. UM and FAU, despite their close proximity, don’t get together very often. Last night they met in Coral Gables, and the game eventually provided a dilemma for me late in the game.
Heading into the bottom of the 9th inning FAU led 6-1 behind a two homer performance by William Block. I positioned myself in one of the empty seats behind home plate, hoping to get a jubilation shot of FAU pitcher Michael Obradovich, who started the game and held the ‘Canes to one run through 8 innings.
When UM’s Jason Hagerty and Joey Terdslodovich reached base to lead off the bottom of the 9th to knock Obradovich out of the game, my thought process started to change. I had to start thinking how I would “play this” if the potential tying run would come to the plate. Sure enough, after a Blake Tekotte and Dennis Raben walk, sandwiched around a strikeout by Jemile Weeks and a sacrifice fly by Yonder Alonso, Ryan Jackson came to the plate as the potential tying run with the bases loaded.
I could hear it now, my Miami PR guy wondering why I missed the game winning homer and my FAU PR guy wondering why I didn’t have a fist pumping “jube” shot of a game ending strikeout.
While a game ending strikeout for FAU might have been more likely than a walk-off homer by UM, I repositioned myself down the third base line in time for Jackson’s at bat.
Why?
It was a UM home game, I decided. Next week the teams meet again in Boca Raton, and I’ll treat it the same way for FAU there.
Before you scream “conflict of interest” to me any newspaper or wire service photographer would have the same decision to make. Besides, what I do for these schools is PR, not news.
Ryan Jackson singled to make it a 6-3 game, and Dave DiNatale came to the plate. I was feeling good about my decision, as DiNatale had hit a walk-off homer to beat Florida Gulf Coast the night before, and had homered against Clemson on Sunday.
Well so much for my analytical thought process, as reliever Glen Troyanowski struck out DiNatale to end the game.
Turns out there wasn’t much of a fist pump either, as FAU’s celebration of its first ever win over a #1 ranked team in any sport was kept low key with just a few high fives.
Why I Switched to Nikon
If you are a photographer you have probably heard by now about Canon’s inability to repair its current professional camera body, the EOS 1D, Mark III. My problem with Canon has its roots as early as the EOS 1D, Mark II. Rated for 150,000 shutter cycles, I had two of those bodies blow their shutters before their 30,000th cycle. Just in case you’ve never seen an image with a blown shutter, here is a look from one of my Mark II’s:
While those bodies were under warranty and were repaired by Canon, more problems surfaced after their return. No longer were the bodies consistently sharp, frame after frame. A return trip to Canon didn’t improve their performance. After dumping them for a Mark IIn, the same problem persisted. So when Canon announced their latest professional body, the Mark III, I decided to wait as see what others experienced. Thank god I waited, the body is a $5000 lemon! Numerous firmware updates and “sub-mirror assembly” fixes have failed to improve its performance. Now Canon has even proclaimed the problems “fixed” and that the body is one of its sharpest ever, while privately they admit many of the pros sticking with them have gone back to using Mark II’s.
So when Nikon announced their latest pro and prosumer bodies, the D3 and D300, I started to think about switching back to Nikon, which I used prior to 1996. Nikon’s previous digital offerings have suffered from excessive noise at high ISO settings. When samples were released from the new bodies at ISO 1600 and above, I decided to make the move.
The following image was shot at 2000 ASA, 1/400 sec @ f2.8 at FAU Softball last Saturday using the D300 and a 70-200 f2.8:
This one was shot a few moments later, after the sun had completely set, at 3200 ASA, 1/500 @ f2.8 using the D300 and a 300mm f2.8:
These are amazing results that Canon can’t touch. Nearly every frame in these sequences were sharp. With Canon I might have 1 of 3 sharp. Shooting at ASA 3200 is very conceivable now, and as an added bonus, they throw in a sharp image….what a deal!
