alittlenews

Briana Corral fields and throws to first for an out against Hastings College in the NAIA Softball National Championship Tournament at Wilson Morgan Park in Decatur. Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. 5/14/09

The girls of the NAIA are back in Decatur for the annual National Championship Tournament and this is one of my most favorite events of the year.  The tournament has expanded to include more teams this year so the set up is a little bit different.  I love this tournament.  The competition is great and I have wonderful access.  The crowds are fairly small.  Not so good for the gate receipts but great for a photojournalists ability to move from field to field and get good shooting positions.

The tournament is held at Wilson Morgan Park in Decatur where there are four excellent ball fields backed up to a central press box with two more fields outside the gate for practice areas.  I don’t mind shooting through fences so I move around frequently and try to get into as many spots as possible.  I love to move around while shooting ball games.  Softball and baseball move slowly enough that you can actually pick out several shooting positions and work them over the course of a game which gives you a lot more possibilities.  Always use your feet.  Move around.  Don’t get stuck in the same old shooting positions just because that is what you have always done.

My favorite spot is down the first base line just beyond the first base bag.  This is a really traditional spot but it gives you good views of the third baseman and short stop and all three outfielders.  It is not so great for pitcher, second base and first base.  In this tournament, they have a scaffold set up at each field that gets you up over the top of the fence.  I guess the scaffold is fifteen feet high and this is a shooting position that I don’t usually have at high school or youth sporting events.  I like the elevation okay because it really cleans up the backgrounds and the backgrounds are a real issue at Wilson Morgan.  Only one field has a good background all the way around.  The other fields outfield fences are very near major roadways or rows of businesses which make very distracting backgrounds.  In fact, the National Championship game is always played on the field with the worst backgrounds.  I guess they don’t set it up with photographs in mind.

Today, I shot with a 300mm f2.8 used primarily in manual focus mode and an 80-200 f2.8 in auto focus mode.  Me and that 300 don’t get along well at all and it is especially bad if I am trying to AF.  It is Nikon’s oldest AF design and it is really, really slow and inaccurate.  I end up missing more shots that I would by shooting manual so I just shoot manual.  AF gets a little quirky anyway when shooting through the fences so manual works best when you do that.  The 80-200 is a terrible lens to try and manual focus so no matter how difficult it is to use through  the wire I will still use it in AF mode exclusively.

The one big thing I like to do in this tournament is get really tight on the players.  It doesn’t always work but when it does it is really nice.  Using the 300 is not as good as using the 400 in this situation but it is adequate for the infielders.  The 400 can just be a little bit too tight on small softball fields.  The great thing about softball is you are closer to the players so there are more opportunities to get really tight.  Then there are the pony tails.  Thank God for pony tails.  I have made some really awesome photos because of pony tail wearing lady athletes.

Today’s assignment was to shoot three of the top contenders; defending national champion Lubbock Christian and perennial contenders Point Loma Nazarene University and California Baptist University.  For whatever reason, the NAIA tournament is always full of Christian schools.  I shot pieces of three games, two of which began at the same time.  If you have to do something like this just keep an eye on the scoreboard of the other games and keep an ear open to crowd noise.  If you hear a lot of cheering in another game you might want to wander over and have a look to see what is up.  Watch the innings so you leave yourself enough time to get the shots you need from each game.  I like to shoot not less than two or three innings per game especially when the competition is really good.  Tight games tend not to make as many good picture opps as games where there is a lot of scoring.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Okay, so this isn’t photojournalism. Sue me! (That one was for you Kate!)  I have the pleasure to announce the graduation of my daughter Katie. She is now a fully minted degree holder from Auburn University and will soon be a grad student. For reasons I have never understood, Katie has had a goal of graduating from college before she turned 21. Mission accomplished! Katie is 20 and will actually be in grad school before she turns 21. Bravo, kudos and well done. Katie is now the second college grad among our children joining her older sister Jo. I am a proud papa and wanted to share the big day with all you folks. Hope you enjoy the pictures. I join my mom is saying that I am delighted that Katie did not walk across the stage with pink hair (yep, she does that some times) even though her color yesterday is not her actual color which does actually show through once in a while. Congrats my precious. Loving You!

(BTW, Bo knows commencement addresses too.)

This page from a Canon products brochure shows the dizzying array of cameras from just one manufacturer.

What kind of camera are you using?  Hey buddy, how much did that thing cost?  Wow, look at the size of that lens!  I hear that stuff all the time and if you shoot for a living you know what I am talking about.  I guess if I get around a cabinet shop I am just as curious about the saws and lathes and drill presses and nail guns they are using so I tolerate it pretty well.  What I have to remember, using my cabinet shop analogy, is that some of the finest furniture ever built was competed without a single power tool of any kind.  The lesson here for you and me is that the camera does not make the photographer.  You can pay the outrageous sum of $7,999 for the Nikon D3X and stink just as bad as if you paid a few hundred and shot with a D50.

That said, equipment does facilitate us and make us able to do different things.  Right now, we are trying to push through an equipment purchase at the newspaper.  Our gear is wearing out and is definitely dated.  Technology marches on and as it takes each step it creates a perceived need for a product in its wake.  For instance, a number of new cameras are incorporating HD video as well as still capture.  I haven’t the slightest interest in video, as a general rule, but when I saw what the EOS 5D Mark II can do in HD I was absolutely stunned and began to see how I could actually use it in my storytelling model.

Equipment purchasing always comes down to a balancing act between what you need and what you can afford.  If you are in business and the camera is your primary money making tool you will spend far more on it than if you are simply a hobby shooter or an aspiring amateur.  I know that many readers of this site are not professional photographers and you guys may not even want an SLR camera.  A point and shoot may suit your needs perfectly.  I am continually consulted upon which camera  a person should buy and I usually ask how much they want to spend as a jumping off point.  So lets take a walk through my camera buying advice and see what you think.

The first question to answer is what will you be doing with the camera.  If you plan to shoot your family functions and vacations your needs will probably be met by purchasing a point and shoot camera that costs less than $500.  If you plan on doing a bit more extensive shooting, say your kids playing sports, a point and shoot camera will drive you crazy and a lower priced SLR will more appropriately suit your needs.  You will also want to buy a longer zoom lens so your budget will need to be between $1,000 and $1,500.

Maybe you are serious about your photography and you want to start shooting weddings.  You will need at least an advanced amateur camera body that will probably cost you somewhere above the $2,000 range and you will need at least two pro series zoom lenses which will add another $2,500 to your bill and you haven’t gotten to strobes and light modifiers such as umbrellas.  You are going to drop a small fortune before you are finished and you need to make sure that you can get enough jobs to get a return on your investment.  If you are a pro, God bless you.  I hope you are really making money because you are about to need a second mortgage to purchase all the gear you are going to need.

This Sony Cyber Shot DSC-W220 packs a 12.1 megapixel sensor, a Carl Zeiss lens and a $179 price tag

Lets start with the most basic camera type, the point and shoot.  You can buy these things in the almost disposable range of slightly more than about $50 bucks.  I wouldn’t even touch one of these.  Poor image quality and even poorer construction.  You will not be happy at all.  Walk into your favorite big box retailer and pick up the cameras and get a feel for what they are like in your hand.  Within your price range, which camera feels the most comfortable to your eye, hand and style of shooting.  There is very little real difference between model A and model Z.  Many seem to be manufactured by the same company and simply resold under a different logo.  My only advice here is to pick a brand that you are familiar with such as Kodak, Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, etc.  The only thing you might really look for is what camera places the flash the longest distance from the lens.  The further away the better.  That is about it.  This is pretty much a one size fits all category in my opinion.

Moving up the ladder just a bit you will begin seeing point and shoot cameras that have some pretty nice features and lenses and can shoot decent video.  In this range you will find cameras like the Canon G10, a truly marvelous little machine that can do everything but sing and dance and it could sing I suppose if you were to record the sound and can at least shoot video of dance.  The G10 is the best of the mid to high range point and shoot type cameras.  I just don’t think there are other cameras close but you can read online and see some other opinions from people who actually shoot these things all the time.  Cameras in this price range will set you back $350 and higher.

If you like the convenience of the small, lightweight camera, you might even consider a Leica rangefinder but if you do, I hope you are a doctor or a lawyer or something like that.  Those babies are really, really expensive to the point that I would not even consider them for my type of work.

The Nikon D5000 provides an entry level camera with HD video capabilities for about $750.

Moving into the SLR category, on the lower end of the financial spectrum you find cameras such as the Nikon D series cameras beginning with the D40 and going up to the higher end of the scale with the D90.  Canon enters the category with the Rebel series and they have lots of xsi type designations.  I don’t personally see a lot of difference between the two companies except that the lower in Nikons are a bit less expensive than the Rebels but with less features.  I would say that in this category you should look for the best bang for the buck and go there because most people buying in this camera type are first time buyers so you have no lens loyalty yet.  Since you don’t have a major investment in previously compatible gear I would just look to see what best fits your budget and go there.  Both systems offer excellent image quality with huge file sizes and some very nice video capabilities as well.  One thing I always admired about Canon, and Nikon is doing this more now too, is that they allowed some really nice features from their pro systems to filter down to the amateur line.

The Rebe T1i from Canon incorporates HD video in a body costing approximately $800 without a lens.

There are some great newcomers in this SLR category now too.   Sony has a very excellent series of cameras with some models in the entry level and Fuji has a very affordable line of SLR cameras.  As the digital age has opened more and more, new competitors have entered the SLR market which broadens your choices and lowers your prices.  A win-win situation for the consumer.  I am actually reading product information on the Sony digital cameras and they have both of the big boys shaking a bit in their shoes.  The A900 has a 24 mega-pixel, full-frame sensor and a relatively miniscule price tag. Another win for the consumer.  There are also traditional camera makers in this category such as Pentax and Minolta who are not big players in the SLR market anymore but still offer some cameras worth your attention.

Moving to the final group, the big spending pros, the cameras have never been better.  For most of the digital era, Canon has been the hands down, not even close winner in the digital image quality wars with Nikon.  I don’t know if Canon and Nikon decided to exchange managers and product developers for a while but over the last couple of years, Nikon has finally done digital right.  It took far too long but when they finally arrived with the D3, D300, D700 and a new set of lenses and strobes they truly arrived with a bang and began reversing a steady migration of pro shooters who had moved or were moving to Canon.  Combined with the flawed launch of the Canon 1D Mark III which had persistent AF issues and the migration was completely reversed.

The Nikon flagship D3 will run you a bit over $4,000 with no lens and will give you supremely good image quality and performance.

The big win for Nikon came with the D3 and its high ISO performance which is truly breath taking.  You can get absolutely beautiful files from a D3 at 6400 that make the D2 series look like it was made by another camera company.  There is that much difference.  The D700 is equally stunning but does have a bit of an upper limit on its ISO performance relative to the D3 but it still produces smashing images under low light.  The other major win for Nikon image quality is in the cleanliness of its files straight out of the camera.  This was always a strength in the Canon line, and still is, but Nikon images always had nasty whites and color cast issues.  Not so with the D3 and subsequent models.  They have the cleanest whites I have ever seen and the images are really easy to tone out requiring very little work in Photoshop.  I am basically a Canon guy at heart but the new Nikons are wonderful cameras.

The Canon 1D series is still a very excellent line and I love the image quality.  The files actually have better color than Nikon files even if the whites are not quite as clean.  The color saturation is still superior to Nikon but that is now more a matter of personal taste than of indisputable visual difference.  Canon seems to have finally fixed their AF problem after many tries and that combined with the amazing image quality makes the Mark III a very excellent choice.  The Mark III does not have the high end image performance that Nikon has and this could be the tipping point for some pros.  I personally don’t need much ISO performance about 3200 but having the ability to bounce up to 6400 in some high school lighting situations keeps the flash in the bag and that is always nice.

The Sony A900 is a beast with a 24 mega-pixel full-frame sensor with a modest price tag of approximately $2,700 or about 1/3rd of what Nikon and Canon get for that resolution.

In my opinion, it still comes down to personal preference between Canon and Nikon.  Sony does have a very nice entrant in the pro market and they have an excellent series of lenses, many of which are built for them by Carl Zeiss, but I have no knowledge of it other than product reviews which have been very good.  Combine the reviews with Sony’s lower price and you may have a camera system you need to investigate.  Keep in mind, nobody has a stockpile of glass for Sony.  Newspapers and magazines where you might work could have a pool of long lenses and specialty gear but it will almost certainly be either Nikon or Canon so keep that in mind as you make purchasing choices.

The one thing about purchasing a pro camera in particular is that the technology is changing so rapidly that whatever you buy is as dated as last year’s PC.  There is just too much going on for you to try and keep pace with technology unless you just have a stockpile of available cash.  If you do, please contact me and I will happily take some of that troublesome money off your hands because I am drooling over some gear myself.  Technology is marching on.  Just keep in mind what is important to you and make your choices accordingly.  Then quit reading articles like this so you don’t get yourself all fired up for gear again.

The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Reece is delighted as he stands at his toy and plays.

Patty and I watched and helped seven children learn to walk and it always seemed that the process just happened.  It was not something you thought about beyond just making sure that the little toddlers didn’t fall on anything or bang into anything that would do them harm.  Then, along came Reece.  All those things that we never even thought about before, the mechanics of crawling and walking, all those things that we had just taken for granted, now have become a big deal.

We never thought about the basic act of putting one foot in front of the other because all our other children just did this naturally.  Down Syndrome children don’t really do any of these mechanics naturally.  Just the basic act of going from a lying position to a sitting position requires repetitive teaching.  Reece can finally do this after many months of “helping” him develop the muscle memory for the job.  Most mornings I now find him sitting up in bed and calling out, “Daaaaaad,” at the top of his little lungs.  He can make it to the sitting position on the floor too if he gets a little help rolling onto his side or his stomach.  These seeming trivial acts are major accomplishments for Reece and for so many others like him.

We had to finally give up on ever getting him to crawl like a normal kid.  He simply refuses to do it.  Put him on his knees and he starts to scream and cry and he will continue to scream and cry until he is no longer on his knees.  I don’t think it hurts him.  I think he is stubborn about it and has decided he is just not going to do it.  So we move on.  Reece is a scooter.  He scoots all over the house sitting on his bottom and he scoots about as fast as any kid I have ever seen crawl. Instead of demanding he learn to crawl and making his life and our lives miserable, we have moved on and we are now taking some baby steps, literally.

Reece can’t walk on his own but he can walk when he gets a little help from his friends.  You have to really support his little rear end because he has some weakness in the hips, a nasty side effect of DS.  Poor muscle tone is one of the things that all DS families have to deal with.  We lovingly call him our little marshmallow man.  But Reece is making progress.  He has gone from assisted kneeling and standing to standing on his own.  Well, he stands unsupported by us anyway.  He can stand as long as he has something to help him balance.  We have a toy now he stands at to play.  He can do that and he is getting better all the time.  The more he stands and gets used to standing the easier it will be for him to balance and begin walking.

All this may sound frustrating but I assure you it is not.  It is, in fact, one of the most fulfilling things Patty and I have ever been through.  I have begun to realize that watching Reece learn is like watching learning in slow motion.  You become more conscious of ever move, every improvement.  You celebrate the smallest accomplishment, many that we didn’t even take note of in our other children.  They just happened and we moved on.  We never expected them not to make progress so sometimes their progress was not properly noted.  Not so with Reece.  Any movement, any new word or sound, any new anything is cause for celebration.  We are really learning to rejoice over the smallest things because in Reece’s life they are not small at all.

The great thing that dealing with Reece has brought to our family is a greater appreciation for the accomplishments of all our children.  We can now see the work that our other children are doing, their artwork, their handwriting and even their creative play and we are more appreciative of what they are doing because it is now so remarkable.  The small stuff is no longer mundane stuff.  When David, our 8 year old, makes a new drawing we see the fine detail he has added and that is something we might have overlooked in our older children.  Watching Reece learn, even as slowly as he learns, is a remarkable thing.  I look into his eyes and I see a brightness and an intelligence that he can’t express with his words yet but I know the intelligence is there.  He sparkles with joy and we get to help him learn to express himself in both word and deed and that is among the greatest rewards of our parenting experience.

While I would not wish Down Syndrome on anyone, I do wish that every one of you could experience the joy of being around Reece or someone like him.  Love is returned to you in so many ways that the negatives of the process are overwhelmed and all you are left with is this amazing feeling that you are helping another person but you are also being helped in ways that you can’t even express.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Y’all already know my love of clouds if you have been here any time at all.  One thing about northern Alabama in the Spring is that you will see some awesome displays in the skies.  We were having a rainy day Friday and it was just one of those flat gray rainy days, no real interest in the sky until about 4 pm.  I was suprised to hear a report of a tornado warning in Lauderdale and Limestone Counties on the scanner.  I did a quick check of the weather radar online and decided to rush to Athens and see what I could get.

My daughter Nikki was with me and we had a quick discussion about doing exactly what Dad says and exactly when he says it.  You know teenagers.  There  are times when they have an inconvenient mind of thier own.  Storm chasing can’t be one of those times.  She did very well and made a few photos herself and even ended up on the back page of The Decatur Daily against this awesome backdrop of clouds.

The sky, which had been an flat gray earlier in the day had become this amazing, bubbling mess on the southern edge of the approaching storm.  We began shooting along Highway 72 in Athens and then, as we heard storm spotter reports, worked our way back to the south.  The storm never produced anything more interesting than some awesome clouds but the rainfall was impressive by any standards.  It was raining so hard by the time we got back to Decatur we were driving 4o with flashers on.

Just remember when you are shooting storms that the primary danger from thunderstorms is not tornadoes or damaging winds.  Lightning strikes kill far more people than tornadoes do and lightning strikes are totally unpredictable.  If you are really interested in shooting storms, read up on thunderstorms as much as you can and learn how to approach one and where you can’t be.  There was one time where Nikki and I were shooting and the fast moving storm was about to box us in.  There were clouds hanging so low they were almost touching the ground to our east and an amazing display of cloud cover to our west and the line was fast approaching.  That was not a good place to be.  Aside from the potential for being in the “box” where we were between two strong areas where there were clearly some high winds, we were not in a good place because of the lightning.  Just be smart.

One of these days I am going to be in the right place at the right time and actually get a photo of a funnel cloud or a tornado on the ground.  Hopefully I will be following my own advice and be able to tell you all about it later.

My daughter Nikki shooting a picture near Mooresville Rd. in Limestone County.

Storm clouds envelope the sky over Calhoun Community College and Pryor Field near Decatur.

Athens Fire Station 2 is seen with a backdrop of storm clouds.

Storm clouds over Garrett Rd. in Limestone County.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.