Quote Originally Posted by gryphonslair99
How it should have read:

If you are close enough to the action that only the shins are in focus, you are too close to get the shot. I rarely can get much closer than 100 feet from the action at a baseball diamond.

At 100 feet with my 70-200mm lens 200mm at f2.8 my DOF is just a touch over 8 feet. At f8 it's 23 feet. If you can't get an entire baseball player in an 8 foot DOF then you have a problem. Having everyone and everything in focus for 23 feet will not make much for much of an action shot.

With my 300mm f2.8 I still have over 3.5 feet of DOF at 100 feet. If I'm using my 400 f2.8 I am further back that 100 feet or shooting closeups of players/coaches.

Whether I am shooting BBall at Allen Field House or on the side lines at an OU or OSU football I am generally shooting wide. Same thing at Eck Stadium with baseball. The action is critical in a sports shot and the photo must draw your eye to the action to have it better than the average run of the mill snapshot.

I used 100 feet as that is a pretty reasonable distance when shooting baseball. Actually with your settings at 100 feet the DOF would be closer to 18 feet. But then shoot sports and shooting bugs at 5 feet are two different forms of photography.
Well then there is the immediate self-contradiction of professing a need for bokeh to isolate the subject, at 100 feet dof is well into infinite focal distance. Kind of hard to get that isolating bokeh if your focus ring is set to infinity. Tell me though, at the infinite focus distance, is it a better idea to shoot wide open? Or, 1-2 stops down? Yes, trick question.

Also depends on the baseball diamond. In the nose bleeds at a major league game, sure.. But, in the front rows, or at minor league, little league, and business leagues, being within 40 feet is also pretty reasonable.