First MLB game - C&C welcomed

Hi all! A couple of days ago I went to the Red Sox - Royals game at Fenway. That's one of the nice stadia which allows big glass, so I took my 7D and 100-400L lens. Our seats were on the roof, halfway up the first base line, so I was about 200 feet from the plate. Since this was a night game, I had to shoot wide open at f/5.6 at ISO 1600 or 3200 in order to stop the action. I'm sure I could have gotten better shots if I were closer to the action, but I'm happy with what I could get. I'd appreciate feedback, since many of you have produced stunning baseball images, and I'd like to learn more.

This first shot shows Ellsbury with the bat on the ball as he hit a homer to lead off the first inning. I was really stoked to see this one, since of all the dozens of swings I shot at high speed, this is the only one that actually shows the ball on the bat, and it was a homer to boot.

Awesome shots.

Nice shots - I do, however, have a question: Where do you prefer to sit when shooting a game? Closer to the batters, mid-way by first, or the outfield. I'll be going to my first minor league game tomorrow (Monday) and will be getting front row by the batter's box.

1 is really nice but I'd crop it down just a tad to lose the white towel in the upper right.

loved seeing these on Glocktalk

dmbecker wrote in post #12894212
Nice shots - I do, however, have a question: Where do you prefer to sit when shooting a game? Closer to the batters, mid-way by first, or the outfield. I'll be going to my first minor league game tomorrow (Monday) and will be getting front row by the batter's box.

To see the Red Sox - I prefer to be inside the stadium. Tickets can be pretty hard to come by, since they have been sold out at home almost 700 consecutive games, a sporting record. If I had my choice of seats to photograph the action, I'd choose near first base down low, so as to catch the facial expressions of the right handed batters. Fenway is small enough that just about any seat except the bleachers will provide excellent photo opportunities.

go redsox and very nice shot

Excellent action shots, well done!

god stuff, i like the first and last, great ball on bat timing on the first, not easy from way up there especially

yeah i love the parks like Yankee Stadium that allow in big glass. Funny how it's often, although certainly not always, the biggest teams that are cool and the smaller the team or the smaller the sport the more uptight and don't you dare they get (why would those teams/sports want to possibly drive away any fan?).

I think you might enjoy a couple of my shots:

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

wombatHorror wrote in post #12899693
god stuff, i like the first and last, great ball on bat timing on the first, not easy from way up there especially...

Actually, it was a matter of good luck - and an 8 frames/second shooting rate. Through the viewfinder, I couldn't see the pitcher's windup, but I could easily see the batter's stance changing in anticipation. All I had to do was hold down the shutter button for the duration of the pitch. Only this single instance showed the ball on the bat, and that was a homer! Thanks for the kind words.

BioSci wrote in post #12899954
Actually, it was a matter of good luck - and an 8 frames/second shooting rate. Through the viewfinder, I couldn't see the pitcher's windup, but I could easily see the batter's stance changing in anticipation. All I had to do was hold down the shutter button for the duration of the pitch. Only this single instance showed the ball on the bat, and that was a homer! Thanks for the kind words.

well luck works too

normally 8fps is wayyyyyy to slow to work out, it's been tried by many, many times and usually it means 8 frames ball not on the bat and self-timing usually works better, but hey it worked in that case so who cares

cool to get it on a homer