First Baseball px w/ 70-200

cmkultradome

I bought a used 70-200 2.8 Canon lens back in November to use for photographing ice hockey, wrestling, and gymnastics. This past week is the first chance I've had to use it for baseball and I loved it. I can't believe the fast shutter speeds I'm getting. I love to see the flying dirt stopped in the air. When shooting hockey and gymnastics I took a lot of the suggestions offered here and shot in Manual mode - it is a learning curve but I was getting the hang of it. I tried to shoot the first baseball game (#1) in Manual mode but the sun ended up reeking havoc on my photos. I would be photographing the batter one second in the shade and then a few seconds later would be over at 2nd base in the harsh sunlight. Luckily I shot in RAW but had a lot of individual PP afterwards. The second game (#2 & #3) I shot in Aperature mode and had the aperature set at 2.8. I found it to be a little easier in the PP world. Any comments on what mode others use to shoot Baseball. Thanks.

Stephanie

#1


#2 My son chasing an outside pitch


#3

johng

Stephanie - welcome to the wonderful world of outdoor sports While indoor sports has poor lighting at least it's CONSISTENT most of the time. Working sports outdoors is a lot of work - whether you use AV mode or Manual, you'll often find yourself needing to make constant adjustments. Unless it's consistently overcast you can almost never set your exposure and forget about it. Every sports has it's challenges and baseball is no different. Don't get down because of my comments below. You're off to a good start but it's a rare shooter that gets quality sports shots right out of the gate.

Having said that, here are my thoughts on these shots:

shot 1: too much dead space - way too much. I would advise you to throw a TC on the lens - 200mm is a bit too short for baseball - and this shot is a good example of that. Asside from that, as you already noted the exposure caused a lot of problems here - the highlights in the skin are blown, and the red is oversaturated

shot 2: face is not in focus. Especially for a shot like this - the face and it's expression is the most important part of the shot. In addition, my advice is to either frame tighter for half-body crop or switch to portrait orientation - shooting full body landscape shots of batters leaves too much uninteresting dead space.

shot 3: nice timing - but there's a distinct lack of detail in the batter - was this shot heavily cropped? Again, FACES are what make sports shots and you can't make out any of the facial details. Either that or the focus was just off again.

Keep at it. You'll get better every time out. And keep seeking feedback, it's the quickest way to improve.

cmkultradome

johng wrote:

shot 1: too much dead space - way too much. I would advise you to throw a TC on the lens - 200mm is a bit too short for baseball - and this shot is a good example of that.

John-
Thanks for your thoughts, I really appreciate them.

In response to the above - I have a non "L" series 70-300mm 4-5.6 lS lens that I used last season to give me more of a reach but I thought the quality of these pictures with the 2.8 aperature came out better, even with the longer reach on the other lens. Do you think it will be that much better for me to use the 70-200 2.8L with the 2X teleconverter which will give me an aperature of 5.6 or go back to the 70-300mm that has a 5.6. I just had a birthday & a 2X teleconverter would be a nice present to myself.

Thanks
Stephanie

bobcool

cmkultradome wrote:

John-
Thanks for your thoughts, I really appreciate them.

In response to the above - I have a non "L" series 70-300mm 4-5.6 lS lens that I used last season to give me more of a reach but I thought the quality of these pictures with the 2.8 aperature came out better, even with the longer reach on the other lens. Do you think it will be that much better for me to use the 70-200 2.8L with the 2X teleconverter which will give me an aperature of 5.6 or go back to the 70-300mm that has a 5.6. I just had a birthday & a 2X teleconverter would be a nice present to myself.

Thanks
Stephanie

My experience with 2x teleconverters is you give up too much IQ for the extra reach. The 1.4 tc has stellar reviews, and the 1.7 (dunno if Canon makes that one?) is a good comprimise of reach vs. IQ in good light. If you really want to check it out, rent the 2X and the 1.4/1.7 TC the same weekend (should be cheap) and see for yourself. That way you'll be able to compare both at the same game and same time of day... Hope this helps..

johng

I agree with Bob - forget about the 2x. A 1.4x is the only one I would consider. Should still get better results than 70-300. THis is the tough thing about sports photography - balancing quality optics against the reach you need. When you don't have enough reach, you simply have to select your shots better. Here's a useful rule of thumb:

if shooting portrait orientation your subject should fill 2/3-3/4 of the vertical frame (depending on how high the ISO is).

If shooting in landscape orientation your subject should fill 80-90% of the vertical frame.

This also assumes a 1.5 or 1.6 crop camera.

If your subject doesn't fill that much of the frame it's too far away.