Shooting Baseball

Bryce Wilson

Scored some great tickets to a Detroit Tigers game for Friday night, 20 rows up right behind the dugout facing third base. Comerica Park is very camera friendly and only prohibits tripod/monopods, but place no restrictions on still cameras. YAY!

I'm thinking my 80-400 4.5/5.6 would be great for the reach it will give me, but for those of you that have done this before, are the lights on the field intense enough for me to get away with a 5.6 f stop and still shoot at 350/500 ss? I'm pretty comfortable pushing the ISO to 3200 with the D-700, if I REALLY have to 6400 isn't all bad either.

Also, any idea on the white balance specs for those major league flood lights they use?

Thanks for any input!

Bryce

jasonstone

I can't help out with an answer but I'm also going to be at a baseball game when I visit the states for Summer - Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park - really looking forward to it

Will be in a similar boat D7000 with 70-300 4.5-5.6 - so kinda similar reach, aperture and ISO range.

Hope someone can help you (us) out

perroneford

Bryce Wilson wrote: »

Scored some great tickets to a Detroit Tigers game for Friday night, 20 rows up right behind the dugout facing third base. Comerica Park is very camera friendly and only prohibits tripod/monopods, but place no restrictions on still cameras. YAY!

I'm thinking my 80-400 4.5/5.6 would be great for the reach it will give me, but for those of you that have done this before, are the lights on the field intense enough for me to get away with a 5.6 f stop and still shoot at 350/500 ss? I'm pretty comfortable pushing the ISO to 3200 with the D-700, if I REALLY have to 6400 isn't all bad either.

Also, any idea on the white balance specs for those major league flood lights they use?

Thanks for any input!

Bryce

Latest info I have for that field is from 2006. Light was ISO 1000 1/640 @F2.8. So that should put you at ISO 3200 at 5.6 if you shoot 1/500 or so.

I have no other info.

lifeinfocus

Go Tigers! Since game time is at 7:05pm and the sun doesn't set to around 9:11pm, weather forecast is clear and 88 degrees. You should have very good light for at least one hour

Latest news is to watch for roster changes as of today, according to FREEP and DetNews.

JSPhotography

lifeinfocus wrote: »

Go Tigers! Since game time is at 7:05pm and the sun doesn't set to around 9:11pm, weather forecast is clear and 88 degrees. You should have very good light for at least one hour

Latest news is to watch for roster changes as of today, according to FREEP and DetNews.

Ya, my radio station joked about players switching dugouts before the game.

jhefti

The good news is that you'll have decent light for a good part of the game. At f/5.6 and that ISO you'll struggle under stadium lights. I typically shoot at ISO 2000-2500 with a wide open f/2.8 aperture when stadium lights are my primary source. Regarding WB, it will be constantly changing during the game as the sun sets. I'd suggest shooting RAW and correcting in the post.

Other settings: In my experience, pitching and batting requires SS of 1/1600 or better to minimize motion artifact. For other action, 1/640 to 1/800 will work though you will get some blurry balls in flight. Faces and non-action shots can of course be shot at much lower SS (but keep in mind that at 300mm keeping the camera steady will be a challenge).

Bryce Wilson

Thanks for the input people! I will put the advice to use and see what I get.

Fortunately, this is for fun, so no worries about how they turn out.

Not too worried about being hand held at the 400 mm end, I use this as a walk around lens fairly often believe it or not, it's relatively small, I'm strong for a man my age and the VR works GREAT.:D At 1600 ss not sure the VR even brings anything to the table though.

The AF on this lens is pretty slow though, so most likely I'm going to try and anticipate action and focus there.

Will let you know how it works out.

Thanks again!

B

jhefti

I'd suggest turning off VR; you're right that it brings nothing to the table at high SS, and it can induce some weird artifacts if you're panning or otherwise moving the lens when you take a shot.

Anticipating action is almost essential in baseball. One of my tricks is to manually focus on where I think the action is going to be--e.g. on second base when there is a runner on first who might steal second. Since I shoot with two bodies, the other is kept in AF mode to pick up other action that might happen. That way I just need to point the camera in the general direction of the anticipated action, and I have my shot. Baseball is very good for these kinds of pre-focused shots, as the place of action is often predictable.