Hey all, I'm new but was looking for some thoughts on some baseball shots I took this past weekend. My Husband is a huge baseball fan and we headed out to watch my team (Valparaiso) play Kentucky in the regional game. I had tried some shots during a night game the night before and had 0 luck with them (I shoot with a Nikon D60) so waited until the light to get some shots.

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Any ideas or thoughts on ways to improve?

Welcome. Sports shooting can be a lot of fun. You're doing some good things here, but there is always room for improvement.
Your final shots are framed nicely, so that's good.

As for improvement:

• Ditch the signature/watermark in bottom right - it's very distracting. Quite frankly, it's also pretentious - one thing for an experienced pro to use that technique. You're not there yet, so it sends the wrong message in my opinion.
• You're shooting down on your subjects - you need to shoot up at them. Which makes it very difficult to create quality sports images shooting from the stands. Which often means if you want to shoot sports as a photographer (and this is a photographer's site, not a fan's site) you need to shoot sports you have access to. I love NFL football, and go to games but I don't have field access so I don't try to photograph it. I photograph lower levels of play where I do have the access.
• Apertures are too narrow - you don't want to be shooting at f8-f9. You want to use wider apertures to help blur the background.
• nice start on easy sportrait style shots but you want to get some action. That's the tough part about shooting baseball. The pitcher in his wind-up is a staple, but being honest it's like shooting a person doing free-throws in basketball. Now think about where the action is on the ball field - THAT's what you want to capture. Plays in the field and on the bases. It's really difficult in baseball because there is so much time between action and when the action happens it happens very quickly. But that's the fun of it - trying to capture it when it does happen.
• Along those lines, while there's some action in the player rounding third, the photo itself doesn't work well because the angle is downward so it completely removes the dynamic feel and you don't have a good view of the face. Faces make photos - even in sports. Lots of players round bases. Most shots of them doing so won't be interesting. You can do everything right as a photographer but it still ends up a boring shot because there's nothing in the photo that's interesting. It's the body and facial expression of the athlete that can make the shot interesting (or not). Hopefully that makes some sense!

Again, for a first time shooting sports and shooting from the stands you did well. But, if you want to photograph sports the first step is choosing whether you're a fan or a photographer. Tough to be a good sports photographer sitting up in the stands.

Thank you for the feedback!

Hi Kristin,

I shoot pro baseball all the time, and understand that it can be really difficult to capture non-routine and interesting action. Basically, it is a very slow game, except for those rare moments when it is really fast.

I agree with John's suggestions, though I suspect that shooting down on the players was an inevitable by-product of needing to shoot from the stands; not much you can do about that except to see if you can get field access. The again, one does see a lot of shots from pro games that were taken from the 2nd tier media baskets, usually by remote. They are much less dramatic but do capture important parts of the game.

Here are two tricks that work for me to get a good set of shots.

1. Shoot the players' reactions, faces, and personal dramas: By this I mean things like frustration after taking a strike, arguments on the field (I've had a number of these shots picked up by the media.), and drama in the dugout.

2. Know where the action is going to be: This might mean giving up a shot of someone at bat because you think a player on first might try to steal second, so you keep your camera pointed on him. A good sliding-onto-base shot can really add to a set.

I think you framed and composed these shots very well, though agree that a wider aperture would go a long way to eliminating background clutter.

Keep shooting!!

John

Thank you so much!!! I love the feedback and will definitely take it all in next time I get a chance to get out there!

I will have to say this.. John.. I invite you to come to that field (The Steelyard in Gary, IN) in a BLISTERING HOT day and sit in the dugout where they put the press photographers. You will be BEGGING to go somewhere else. It's BRUTAL! Last Railcats game I shot for the paper (home opening weekend) was killer, after 2 innings I headed up to the Coors Light Party deck (damn they were closed, no CL for me. Booo) Anyway, my point.. Yeah, it's nice when you can shoot level with the players but sometimes you have to deal with what choices you are given. As a fan at that stadium (I don't know how packed it was for that NCAA series, I wasn't covering it) you take what you can get. LOL, or if you hate the heat, head for the CL party deck. LOL

Jim - the point is - it's extremely difficult to make quality sports photos from fan seats in the stands. It just is. That's the difference between fan snapshots and sports photography. That's why it's difficult to make quality sports photos as a fan of higher levels of play. So, if the OP wants to photograph sports, the suggestion is to practice and learn at events where she CAN get closer to the action. I still strongly believe, a good sports photo is about the photo - no bonus points are given because of the level of play. A quality action shot of tee-ball players trumps fan-shots of MLB games.

For example, a random shot from a while back - coach pitch. Just runnin' the bases. But the expression makes it interesting. Compare to the OPs shot of player rounding third. I would argue that even though this kid is 7, not 20 it is a more interesting sports photo. The angle of the shot and the shallow DOF (created by being close enough to shoot tight without cropping) help immensely.

Understanding that you probably couldn't get field-level access, I agree with everything John said. I shoot youth sports and I've had parents ask me howcome their shots never look anything like mine. Well, aside from the $6000 in my hands, the secret is hidden in plain sight. I am shooting from my knees to get down on the player's level. You got some great captures and nice "sportraits" (and as said, in baseball it's very difficult to get anything but sportraits if you are trying to get shots of every player) so it looks like you're off to a good start. Your next step would be to get field level access and a faster lens that will blur the background. That is, if you want to get semi-serious about this. If you were just looking for compliments on your fan snapshots this one time, you did a great job at that.

Johns right, dosent matter how old, you need to get on the field, and get low, I shoot coach pitch while laying on my stomach. I just shot this today while walking through the park, they had a baseball game going on. I also like to shoot tight, but since I don't have a 300 or a 400mm I have to crop so I lose some image quality, then I lose more when I downsize my file to this forum. I only have a 70-200, with a 1.4 extender. The only thing I don't like about this shot is, I wish I was more to the right shooting at a different angle to get more face. I got this sitting down.