Taking a Shot at Shooting Baseball

I had some time before my daughters soccer practice started, so I thought I would take a shot at some baseball pictures. All were taken with a 70-200 at f/4.

The first thing I did was try to get some images of the pitcher. To do this I was standing just off to the side, behind the plate, and shooting through the fence. With the sun shade off, and the lens right against the fence, they come out fine. I don’t see any lines.

Well, those aren’t too exciting really. I need some real action. Well, wouldn’t you know it, a pop up that the catcher and the pitcher ran to get.

I got it, I got it! Boom!

I almost had a great shot there. Two players colliding, the ball in the picture, and the focus on the back of the closest player. Oh well. Have to use a smaller focal length, or get the person looking at me in focus.

Then I moved over to the first base line. There was an opening in the gate that I could peek through. They walked a player to first, so no play at the plate. Then this:

Again, I like the shot. I was waiting for this one. The guy was taking quite a lead, and I was just waiting for the pitcher to throw it to first. But, as luck would have it, the pitcher doesn’t throw to first very well. This is the actual picture I got.

Somehow I don’t think that cutting someone off at the head is a good sports shot. I was surprised how sharp the image looked when I cropped 2/3 of the picture away, but I can’t imagine it prints all that well.

Anyway, that was only about 15min of shooting, and quite fun. I am definitely going to try to get back and shoot some more.