Like shooting any sport, you’ll always want to fill as much
as the frame as possible. I was taught
to shoot tight and crop tighter. So with
that said I’ll bring three lens for any baseball game (and this goes for all
field sports) a 24-105 f/4, a 70-200 f/2.8 and a 400 f/2.8. I’ll also have a TC 1.4 that will work very nicely
on the 70-200 and the 400.
Positions:
Position #1, if the officials will allow me inside the fence
I’ll position myself next to the fence at first base. From here I’ll grab shots of right handed
batters and left handed pitchers using the 70-200 with the 1.4 TC. This position will give me a good angle for
plays at third base and home plate as well fielding in the infield and the
right outfielder. You can try to shots
of other plays of course, but if I can’t fill the frame on fielding, I’ll keep
my lens pointed at the runner. At this
position I’ll also use my 400 to get nice tight shots of players at all
positions.
Position #2, the second inning, I’ll switch to the third
base where you’ll get good shots of left handed batters and right handed
pitchers. This position will also give
you the best coverage on all three bases, home plate, and the left outfielder.
My third position will be outside the fence behind the
catcher and get shots of the pitchers straight on. I’ll shoot some tight with the 400 and some
wider shots using 70-200.
After that I’ll put myself on freestyle mode. That could be outside the fence next to the
left or right outfielder and hope a ball gets hit to them. It could be hanging out in the dugout (with
permission of course) to get some candid’s/emotions of the players. Or when a coach puts in a new pitcher I’ll
move to position #3 and #1 or #2 to get shots of the new pitcher.
Last bit of advice…don’t chase the plays. Get in your location and stay there at least
a whole inning at first. There will
always be plays that cannot be captured all any position. Just be patient and get the plays you can at
the current position.
Settings
As far as settings all of my bodies are setup using these
settings:
I’ll typically shoot in AV mode shooting wide open (largest aperture
for the lens I’m using which is f/2.8 on the 70-200 and 400, or f/4 on the
24-105 and f/4 on the 70-200 and 400 when the TC is attached), and then set my
ISO until I can maintain a shutter speed of 1/1000. But when the sun is high and there are no
clouds will get a lot of shading on the faces due to the baseball caps. If that is the case I’ll over expose the
images by at least 1/3rd of a stop.
I’d rather see faces and have blown out backgrounds then not being able
to see the face.
Other settings is set the AF to AI-Servo and set the camera
up to use one of the back buttons to activate the AF.
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