High School Baseball (1st post)

travischance

I'm a rookie requesting C&C on the attached photos. This was my first baseball game and second overall sporting event. After reading a reply by Enitsugua on #12 of this thread, I kept my 70-200 zoomed at 200mm. What do you suggest about "taming" the highlights on the uniforms? Thank You in advance!

7D | f2.8 | ISO 100 | AI SERVO | AV & M | between 1/2500 & 1/4000

Ricky

Is the infield astroturf ? I'm in the south so looking at this is strange. I see dirt at the mound and at home plate but that red infield is puzzling me. I thought you had oversaturated until I saw real dirt.

I would crop the player to the left out in #3

travischance

Ricky wrote:

Is the infield astroturf ? I'm in the south so looking at this is strange. I see dirt at the mound and at home plate but that red infield is puzzling me. I thought you had oversaturated until I saw real dirt.

I would crop the player to the left out in #3

Yes this is turf. I actually desaturated all photos because the colors were so rich. Thanks for the suggestion on #3 as that was my thought as well.

johng

Travis,

Some decent results for only your second sporting event.
As for highlights on the uniforms - I honestly don't worry about 'em. FACES are much, much more important. The truth is - most people notice the action and the faces and ignore blown highlights.

The biggest issue is - you just don't have enough focal length for full field baseball. You need at least 300mm for infield shots IF you're actually shooting from the field/dugout. You can get by in softball, but not so much in baseball with 200mm. If you can't afford a longer lens at least invest in a 1.4x TC. As for the shots:

shot1: pitchers are a great way to cut your teeth - they're easy targets and you get hundreds of opportunities per game. Now, without a name on the jersey I'm not a big fan of the 'back side' photos of pitchers. I prefer the front side (or if it's a right handed pitcher, shooting from 3rd base, left handed pitcher shoot from 1st). OR head on. You can get some nice shots during warm-ups from inside the fence or thru the backstop fence during actual play.

shot 2: I realize the fielding team is your team, but the framing of this shot is off. You've cut off half the player on the ground. I would see if you couldn't use the dodge tool to bring out some facial details. A brighter exposure wouldn't have worked well since you'd blow the highlights in the fielder's face. Also it looks like you're standing here and shooting DOWN. Try to kneel or sit so you get a lower perspective.

shot 3: this is where the focal length really killed you. Timing is nice, but this needs to be framed MUCH tighter

shot 4: you've got the ball in the frame which is good. but IMO the catcher adds very little to this type of shot - the batter and catcher aren't interacting. So choose your subject. Is it the catcher? Or the batter? Frame accordingly. If it's the batter you want the timing a little closer to bat on ball and tighter framing so you can see the face of the batter.

shot 5: nice timing but again focal length is an issue. You want sharper features on the fielder. Unfortunately you can't crop your way to sharp features - you need to frame tightly to begin with. More focal length will also help with the background - it's distracting because DOF is too great. And because of the loose crop. You want to get the ball closer to release so you can crop tighter.

shot 6: too much dead space and the face of your player is underexposed. Also, the timing is a tad early. This is where it's nice to have a good burst rate - next shot in the sequence should be closer to the tag and thus be more appealing.

shot 7: akward shot. The framing is akward because you've got a lot of dead space and only a partial body. Of the body, the face is the most important part but it's underexposed. Also, another point about burst here. Even if you had the full body in the shot, it's an akward point in his stride - you really can't time that, so it's important to take a burst so youu can pick the photo with the best looking stride when you're shooting just a garden variety running shot like this.

Again, for your first time shooting baseball and only second time shooting sports and given you didn't have enough focal length I think you did very well. I mention the above so you have some input on where you need to go next to get a little better.

travischance

Johng:

Thanks for the detailed response. You made some excellent recommendations that I've made a mental note of going forward. I am a coach at St. Johns in DC & several shots were taken from our dugout. Ironically I'm getting ready to purchase a 300 2.8 & 1.4x converter. If my math is correct, the 70-200 will become 448mm @ f4 on the long end right?

For the first 4 innings, I shot from our dugout sideline & the remaining 3 innings were from Good Counsels - a front side photo of our pitcher is attached.

In Shot #2, the area outside the field of play is raised about 15" & seperated by a 4 ft. brick wall. Thus the reason why it appears I'm standing but I was in the kneeling position the entire game. I changed positions & got the attached but it's from behind our first baseman.

Thanks again for your advice and it definitely opened my eyes to areas of opportunity. I'll be shooting a few more games this season and will photos for critique then. All the best & Thanks again!