First time shooting baseball

Here's one of the shots I got from my first time shooting baseball. How'd I do?

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I think it tells a good story about what happened. If I knew them it could work. Of course having the ball coming into the frame would be neat but may not have happened. Can you add one? Just kidding!

are they playing on plastic grass?

Nice shot! Have some more you can share?

Utah7 wrote in post #9945917
are they playing on plastic grass?

yes, that's FieldTurf. The University of Illinois has it everywhere except the pitchers mound.

pcunite wrote in post #9945741
I think it tells a good story about what happened. If I knew them it could work. Of course having the ball coming into the frame would be neat but may not have happened. Can you add one? Just kidding!

The ball is in his mitt. You can tell by they way he's "guarding" it with his right hand.

Sledhed wrote in post #9946177
yes, that's FieldTurf. The University of Illinois has it everywhere except the pitchers mound.

I would have loved to play on that stuff. I played many games on crushed brick and that gave monstrous strawberries.

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm sure I'll be doing more baseball shooting. It was fun and it seems as if everyone liked the pictures.

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I have always been told these following three "rules" in sports photography.

1) Eyes. Get eyes. You can barley see the catchers eyes...and the runner....ah no.
2) Balls. Always try and get balls in the shot.
3) Backgrounds, backgrounds, backgrounds.

Now...with that being said, I hardly ever follow the rules.

In this case I think shooting from 1st base would have been a lot better, and the frame or two before this one would have also been better.

Jon

Horrible job, she's completely out of focus...those guys got in the way.

Hey beachbum, pretty nice shot!

You obviously saw the play coming and got into good position and got a well focused shot. But in a situation like that, you have to start shooting early and literally blast off somewhere between 6-10 shots in a sequence to get the peak action shot. You ALMOST got it, but if you only took one, very nicely done!

Oh and image on my screen appears overly contrasted for some reason.

dave

A local high school is redoing their whole field the same way.. won't be done until next season .. and I hate the idea of not playing baseball on dirt and grass

DHMN wrote in post #9954785
A local high school is redoing their whole field the same way.. won't be done until next season .. and I hate the idea of not playing baseball on dirt and grass

I felt the same way about football last year. That was until our home team (my son plays) played it's last 4 home games on grass in the rain. Add that the soccer team plays on the same field and it was trashed. All the way gone!

The turf fields drain well and provide a good playing surface even in the rain. Last season may have changed my mind for good!

On the downside of turf fields, a few of the area high schools went OVER budget on the fields and skimped on lighting which made really poor shooting conditions. At our field, we have grass and superb lighting.

It's always something!

dave

Football and Soccer.. is a different story.. the community college football team plays on our high school field also and the the midfield (between the 35 yard lines) is so chewed up from soccer that come playoffs it's almost unusable. I wouldn't even mind a turf baseball field if the bases were cut out so players didn't have to slide on the turf.

I referee high school football and have seen the good and the bad. I've seen newer artificial turf fields that absolutely suck. They don't put enough padding down under the top surface. Fortunately, 10 of the 14-15 games we do each year have artificial turf and they're usually fantastic. I've also seen some of the best natural turf fields you'll find, especially for a high school. Granted, when you have varsity, JV, freshman, junior high football, high school soccer and even some lacrosse on the field, it goes to crap in a hurry. I am ALL for artificial turf fields. It's much easier on my knees and ankles, but I'm old. Ok, 36 isn't that old, but when you're chasing 16 year olds for 48 minutes, it makes you feel old. Yes, they are expensive, but the overall savings justifies spending the money for one.