Midwest League baseball

[swmdrayfan]

[swmdrayfan]

These were all taken with a D70 and 70-300mm lens. All taken in Battle Creek, Mi.

[masdog]

Some nice pics, Swm. I think the bottom one is my favorite of the three since you do an excellent job of freezing the action. The top one is also good, but it looks like you need to open up your apeture more to set the subject apart from that background. Your D70 has an apeture priority mode - try using that and setting your apeture to the largest setting possible. This will really blur the background out so you can focus in on your subject.

The middle photo really doesn't catch my eye. It looks like the one player is doing batting practice, but its hard to see because #24 is in the way. I think this takes away from the shot because I can't see what he is doing.

You have some really good action photos here. I hope you keep posting.

Sean

PS - Do you have a media pass for these games, or do you just buy a ticket and walk in?

[JSPhoto]

Nice play at the plate there! My best shot at the plate is on my ihssw.biz website (bottom of main page). It ran in a paper a couple years ago.
Nice stretch on the pitcher, now the tricky one, try and catch him as the ball is just leaving his fingers, thats the tricky shot to get.
Another one to try and get is just as the bat meets the ball. I had one pitchers timing down so well I got three of those in one inning! My favorite though was my first ever ball on the bat shot as the warmup batter was in the background swinging the same way the batter at the plate was. That one made the paper too.

It's all in the timing, learning each pitchers timing, the batters timing and of course your equipments timing - shutter lag can be the biggest trick to overcome.

JS

[swmdrayfan]

Some nice pics, Swm. I think the bottom one is my favorite of the three since you do an excellent job of freezing the action. The top one is also good, but it looks like you need to open up your apeture more to set the subject apart from that background. Your D70 has an apeture priority mode - try using that and setting your apeture to the largest setting possible. This will really blur the background out so you can focus in on your subject.

The middle photo really doesn't catch my eye. It looks like the one player is doing batting practice, but its hard to see because #24 is in the way. I think this takes away from the shot because I can't see what he is doing.

You have some really good action photos here. I hope you keep posting.

Sean

PS - Do you have a media pass for these games, or do you just buy a ticket and walk in?

I have a minor league pass, so there's no problem getting in. The team lets me come in about an hour or so before the gates open, so I'm able to get pictures during bp...hence the middle picture you mentioned earlier. I have had success with timing the pitcher releasing the ball, but so far the contact between ball and bat has been a little more difficult. I'm usually a hair late or early. I've tried shooting in the various modes...and have had more success in shutter priority than the others, but I know what you're talking about with ap mode.