I wasn't going to blog about this, but then the clever title occurred to me, so I couldn't resist! Bonus points if you know what it means.

My dad has become a real outdoor photography buff in the last 5-10 years. It ties directly to his business -- he writes hiking/camping guidebooks for areas in Colorado -- so it means expensive photography equipment is a nice tax write-off. He bought his first digital SLR, a Canon D30 (not to be confused with the much newer 30D; way to use confusing model numbers, Canon!), about 5 years ago, and has bought a couple of newer/bigger/better ones since. One of them was used a few years ago to capture this image, which won first place in a national photography competition:

With newer and better cameras, he no longer needed the D30, so he recently sent it to me. I've had my Olympus C-3030 Zoom for about 6 years now, and I've been very happy with it. I was thinking of maybe upgrading when similar cameras reached 12 megapixels (twice the resolution in both directions), but that hasn't happened yet. The D30 has nearly the same pixel resolution as the C3030z, but it offers a large number of improvements over my old camera.

• Much better optics.
• Interchangeable lenses, resulting in far better zoom capability.
• Uses Compact Flash media, which can go up to a few gigabytes, as opposed to the 64 MB limit on the Olympus.
• RAW image output (optional).
• Shutter speeds up to 1/4000th of a second (only 1/800th on the Olympus).
• Multiple light metering modes for getting just the right exposure.
• Multiple autofocus zones for focusing on off-center subjects.
• Noise reduction for long exposure shots.
• Sensitivity up to 1600 ISO equivalent (Olympus goes up to 400 ISO).

Both cameras share a number of features, such as white balance adjustments, autoexposure bracketing, timer and multiple-shot modes. About the only thing the Olympus does that the Canon does not is a little 320x240 movie mode. Generally that's not too useful, as I would use my Canon Optura DV cam for serious video recording. So I expect to use the D30 more often now, though the C3030z will still be useful as a simpler "point and shoot" camera in certain situations (more on that later).

Which finally brings us to the title of this post: Pictures at an Exhibition Game. A few weeks ago, my wife got 4 free tickets to the California Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California's last exhibition game at Angels stadium in Anaheim of Los Angeles. Let me make one thing very clear: baseball sucks. It is not a sport. Any "activity" where the professional participants can have beer guts because they only need to do one or two sprints in a game does not qualify as a sport. Any game that can be played multiple times per day by the best of the best professionals clearly does not require enough of a cardio workout to be considered a real sport.

With that said, I agreed to go so that I could test out some features of the new camera. We got there in the middle of the sixth inning, and true to boring baseball form, no runs were scored in the final four innings. Woohoo! So exciting!

I brought both cameras and used a 75-300mm zoom lens on the D30. To compare just how much closer I can get to the subjects, check out the following pictures. The first, taken with the Olympus at maximum zoom, easily shows the entire infield. The second, taken at 75mm (zoomed all the way out on the lens) with the D30, doesn't quite fit all the bases into the picture. Of course, if I want to zoom out further with the D30, I just pop the other lens on it (my dad also sent a 28-80mm lens).

At full zoom, I was able to get some nice shots of the pitcher throwing to home plate, all the way from the other side of the ballpark. All four shots are of one pitch, taken in rapid succession.

That's right, a nice fast 1/2000th second shutter speed captured the ball with basically no motion blur:

Cool. So you'd think this would be a great camera to bring to any sporting event, huh? Say, maybe tonight's Clipper playoff game? Perhaps I could get a killer shot of Elton Brand slamming it down over Carmelo Anthony. Unfortunately, no. Staples Center has at least 3 rules which prohibit me from taking the D30 into the arena:

• No lenses greater than three-and-one-half inches in length
• No telephoto or zoom lenses of any kind
• No interchangeable lenses of any kind

Bah! Those are many of the features that make this such a good camera. So, I'll probably bring my Olympus and see if I can get anything decent with it. With its underpowered zoom, maybe I will, maybe I won't. But hey, if we decide to dress up in Clipper face paint and wigs, maybe that'll make for plenty of good pictures...

Did you get the title reference?