Hey everyone, I have almost a year under my belt taking photography seriously and shot my first baseball game last week. I played the game through college and spent just as much of life working up to umpiring college baseball, but now it's time to sit on the other side of the fence.
I was only able to stay for the first three innings of this one, and I was only able to shoot through two gaps in a gate near third base so the angles I could cover are quite limited. The field is entirely surrounded by about a 50 foot fence as it's in downtown Brooklyn, so you can't just go down the line like normal and get a clean view—the only unobstructed views are from the dugouts or small stands above the right field fence.
I'm heading back there for some of the upcoming series this weekend, so I'd love to know what you all think so I can improve for next time.
All shots via Nikon D750 with a Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8E.
Brian,
Good work with limited access! A few thoughts:
• You could get away with cropping in tighter on pretty much all of these. I might even play with cropping the catcher out of the mound conference to pull more attention onto the coach.
• The pitcher shot is cool, not the best moment in a pitcher's delivery, but the base runner taking off behind him is a cool element. I would crop in from the right to tighten it up.
• Nice diving sequence at third. Focus seems off on most of them, but that's not something you have complete control over. I would crop in tighter, I think my favorites are #1 and #4.
Good stuff, looking forward to more of your work!
Andrew, thanks for having a look! Much appreciated.
Lots of cropping to do—makes sense. I was just now toying around with some of these in Lightroom and, for example, going tighter and cutting out the catcher emphasizes the coach a lot more and looks much better. Same with the pitcher one, and I took the same tighter cropping to a few more traditional pitcher shots and they work better as well.
Here's to hoping someone hits another triple in today's game that I can nail the focus on.
Brian,
Nice work, especially for being your first time photographing baseball.
I would not use the 3rd and 4th sliding photos:
- The 3rd baseman is cut in half.
- The runner looks to be simply laying on the ground. I know he isn't but it looks that way.
Nice job.