Baseball Camera Settings

streegshooter

Hello:

I am going to be shooting my first high school baseball/softball games this week, and was wondering if someone could point me in a good general direction on where to start out.

I've got a Canon 40d - 70-200IS f2.8

Thanks a ton for any help!! :thumb

gus

Welcome to d/grin Ian has some great tips in a sticky at the top of this forum.

sportsshooter06

streegshooter wrote:

Hello:

I am going to be shooting my first high school baseball/softball games this week, and was wondering if someone could point me in a good general direction on where to start out.

I've got a Canon 40d - 70-200IS f2.8

Thanks a ton for any help!!

r u seated behind a fence or will you put yourself in harms way, and be aloud on the field. What age are you shooting?

If you want faces, bat, ball, good plays, you need more than a 70-200. The 70-200 will only cover , maybe home plate, 1st or third depending on where you shoot from. 2nd and short need 200mm minimum, outfield 300mm, minimum. you must have shutter speed 2.8 if at late afternoons, f4 during daylight. 1/1000 minimum shutter, 1/2000 is better.

my bad, you said HS, they probably won't let you on field, 2 dangerous. so you need to shoot thru fence? I would concentrate on one field position at a time. 2nd, short, 3rd, wait for a play,get some good shots, then go to the next field position. After that, do some batters, you need them facing you and bat and ball. Look for plays at home, some plays at t1st can be ok. Sliding is always great, but they need to show faces.

well that's enough for you to digest, practice, practicescratch

darkdragon

sportsshooter06 wrote:

r u seated behind a fence or will you put yourself in harms way, and be aloud on the field. What age are you shooting?

If you want faces, bat, ball, good plays, you need more than a 70-200. The 70-200 will only cover , maybe home plate, 1st or third depending on where you shoot from. 2nd and short need 200mm minimum, outfield 300mm, minimum. you musthave shutter speed 2.8 if at late afternoos, f4 during daylight. 1/1000 minimum shutter, 1/2000 is better.

That is a depressing response. Not because it lacks information, but because all I have is 70-200 f/4 and I'm planning on doing some shooting (from press area, not the stands) in a couple weeks. I'll be shooting at a AAA stadium though, not HS.

I use to shoot baseball (AA Dodgers) from the field with a film camera, but that was something like 14 years ago and I have NO idea what camera or lens I was using. Couldn't have been much, but I did get some great shots. I sat to the left of home plate (on the dirt infield, near the duggout) and got great batter and pitcher images and runners comming down the 3rd base line.

Back to the OP, with the 1.6x crop factor camera if you are shooting from the sidelines - I think you could get some nice shots at the long end. Will they be allowing flash? I'm thinking of picking up a 1.4x teleconverter myself, what do you think? I beleive with your lens you would still have autofocus with the 1.4x.

G RiC

in regards to location, i like behind the plate. if you need to shoot everyone, i'd do it on warm ups but watch your horizon so it doesn't look like they are warming up. shooting the batter is tough but if you get ball on bat it would be rewarding.

gr

donek

sportsshooter06 wrote:

If you want faces, bat, ball, good plays, you need more than a 70-200. The 70-200 will only cover , maybe home plate, 1st or third depending on where you shoot from. 2nd and short need 200mm minimum, outfield 300mm, minimum. you must have shutter speed 2.8 if at late afternoons, f4 during daylight. 1/1000 minimum shutter, 1/2000 is better.

The following were shot with a Nikon D200 & VR 70-200 F2.8 set at f4.

no crop - from between home and first


2nd base action from between home and 1st cropped from 10 Mpix to approx 4 Mpix


I think the point is, you'll do quite well with your 70-200 f2.8. The F4 lens will likely do pretty well as well if the light is good, or you shoot at higher ISOs. You'll have no problem getting high quality 8X10's. A longer lens will provide more bokeh and allow you to shoot verticle. As I find batting shots repetitive and boring, I don't shoot the game verticle.

I tend to dissable the focus on my shutter button when shooting baseball and use only back button focus. This makes it possible to predict the action at a given base, prefocus on the base and then wait for the action to arrive, frame my shot and lay down on the shutter without worrying about the camera refocusing.

If you are very familiar with Baseball, skip this tip. If you like sand flying as players dive at a base, your best opportunity is at first. The first batter on base is likely to try to steal second. If there's a runner on first and noone on second prefocus and frame your shot for 1st base. When the pitcher tries to throw the runner out, you've got you're shot setup.

I have been shooting baseball this season with my Sigma 50-500mm. Reviewing these shots has led me to believe I should try the 70-200 again as it focuses so much faster.

jonh68

Back to the OP, with the 1.6x crop factor camera if you are shooting from the sidelines - I think you could get some nice shots at the long end. Will they be allowing flash? I'm thinking of picking up a 1.4x teleconverter myself, what do you think? I beleive with your lens you would still have autofocus with the 1.4x.

While using flash in a gym varies dependent on the arena, using flash in baseball, softball is a pretty much universal no-no.

streegshooter

Awesome guys thank you so much for the tips and tricks. I am shooting my first game tonight and will come back with some results for you to critique! :baldy