Capturing the Ballpark Experience: Apps for Lumia

“When the lights go down in the city … And the sun shines on the bay …”

On a cool, windy night in San Francisco last week, Journey’s rock paean about “the city by the bay” blasted through the AT&T Stadium, amplified by more than 25,000 baseball fans who sang along. Among them were a handful of local news media who learned how the Lumia 1020, Lumia 1520 and Lumia Icon smartphones — along with some hand-chosen apps — can heighten sports events such as the one that night between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals.

From experimenting with the Lumia 1020’s powerful 41-megapixel camera to trying out apps such as At Bat, the official app of Major League Baseball, these baseball fans experienced America’s favorite past time in a new way.

From the moment they got the Lumias in their hands, they started snapping away with their phones’ native Nokia Camera app, documenting the pre-game tour and batting practice all the way through the nine-inning game.

They also had a chance to play with the smart sequence feature within the Nokia Camera app, which lets you take a series of fast-action photos, enhance their images via Adobe Photoshop Express, a powerful on-the-go editing app, and Creative Studio, whose Focus + Blur, Color Pop and Collage features are limited only by your imagination.

Even though these folks are primarily writers, we think they took some pretty good-looking pictures. Here are just a few.

Giants vs. Cardinals with #TeamLumia Go Giants! pic.twitter.com/z9VEB9jiQd

— carolina milanesi (@caro_milanesi) July 2, 2014

Pretty fun! You can see more of their photos by going to Twitter and Instagram and using the hashtag #TeamLumia.

Play Ball!

If you’re into baseball, MLB.com’s At Bat always gives you a premium viewing experience. So no matter where you are in the world, you can keep a close eye on your favorite baseball team.

App features include live scoreboard, schedules and video highlights. And since you can’t always be near a television, with an additional yearly $9.99 subscription, you can watch games live (requires MLB.TV Premium subscription though) and get gameday pitch-by-pitch tracking from all 30 MLB ballparks. One neat Windows Phone feature: Pin your favorite team to the home screen for quick access to the team page.

And if you need entertainment for between innings, try 100 Balls and listen to a custom “Ballpark Tunes” playlist on MixRadio.

Who are your favorite sports teams? Have you used any of these apps at sporting events?