Newbie to sports photography

I have a D3200 with the 300mm zoom. I have been thoroughly enjoying taking photographs of my son playing baseball, my oldest in in marching band and that is fun to shoot too. Here are a few. I would love to hear what people think. Unfortunately I have to either shoot through a chain link fence or go out in the outfield with a tripod and use up all of the 300mm to get good pics. First one is very cropped.....I need to get a faster shutter speed.....I would love to be able to see the seams of the ball better.

I am loving this camera.....it is my first DSLR and I am loving the quality of pictures it produces.

zeismb said:

...Unfortunately I have to either shoot through a chain link fence or go out in the outfield with a tripod and use up all of the 300mm to get good pics. First one is very cropped.....I need to get a faster shutter speed.....I would love to be able to see the seams of the ball better.

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On the fence issue: Ask if you can shoot beside the dugout. Stay out of everyone's way, and most teams/coaches/umpires are more than happy to let you shoot there. And most importantly, remember to protect yourself. Nothing will ruin your day (and possibly your camera) faster than a foul ball heading in your direction.

On shutter speed: You want some blur. Motion blur shows, well, motion. That particular shot is already at 1/1000, which I would argue is already too high. If you stop all motion of the ball, it looks like it's just floating there and it looks silly. Sports shots look sooooo much better when you're able to capture part of the action instead of freezing the moment.

zeismb said:

I would love to hear what people think. Unfortunately I have to either shoot through a chain link fence or go out in the outfield with a tripod and use up all of the 300mm to get good pics.

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Shoot through the fence. If you have a lens hood just press it up against the fence or put your lens as close as you can if you dont have a hood. Just be careful and dont scratch your lens.. You will get good results.

zeismb said:

First one is very cropped....

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You need to crop tight when shooting sports. The other two would look better with a tighter crop.
Here is an example I'm talking about.
(Ill take photos down if you want me to)


As for motion blur. Thats a personal taste. Some like it some don't. Me personally I like to freeze the action. But baseball is very hard to freeze the action.

aced19 said:

Shoot through the fence. If you have a lens hood just press it up against the fence or put your lens as close as you can if you dont have a hood. Just be careful and dont scratch your lens.. You will get good results.




You need to crop tight when shooting sports. The other two would look better with a tighter crop.
Here is an example I'm talking about.
(Ill take photos down if you want me to)
View attachment 89675View attachment 89676

As for motion blur. Thats a personal taste. Some like it some don't. Me personally I like to freeze the action. But baseball is very hard to freeze the action.

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Thanks for the feeds back. I am able to get good shots by going right up to the fence and putting the lens in the gaps....it does interfere....I have some good shots from being home plate that way.

Yeah I was planning on cropping the other two pics.

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Browncoat said:

On the fence issue: Ask if you can shoot beside the dugout. Stay out of everyone's way, and most teams/coaches/umpires are more than happy to let you shoot there. And most importantly, remember to protect yourself. Nothing will ruin your day (and possibly your camera) faster than a foul ball heading in your direction.

On shutter speed: You want some blur. Motion blur shows, well, motion. That particular shot is already at 1/1000, which I would argue is already too high. If you stop all motion of the ball, it looks like it's just floating there and it looks silly. Sports shots look sooooo much better when you're able to capture part of the action instead of freezing the moment.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. I understand your point on motion blur. I think I haven't decided what if I like motion blur or stopped motion.

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I do allot of sports shots. Shooting through the fence is kind of a norm if you want to get in a good location. Most times it's hard to get in a good location that avoids background clutter. In fact I trash most of my shots for this reason. Walking away from a game with 4-500 images is an average but after looking through them after importing them i'll keep maybe 100-150. Like the other post stated, just put the hood against the fence and fire away. Just make sure your centered in one of the fence holes. The fence links will somewhat disappear but you may still need to crop a little. Kinda like looking at something with a piece of hair hanging in front of your eye. As far as motion blur it's up to you and your style. You might find you need an ND filter to achieve the blur your looking for on a sunny afternoon while still separating the subject from the background.

Here are a few that are shot through a fence.

Just keep shooting and like FastGlass said work on getting a clean background. It's hard to do sometimes in the parks with all the fields stacked on top of each other.

Here is one shot through the fence trying to get the frozen ball effect.

remove please I double posted

Thanks everyone for sharing your tips and images. Can't wait till next game to shoot more. How do you deal with this type of situation. Watching the action and I want to catch my son crossing home plate. But the auto-focus likes the fence and the stand of people in the background. Do I have to anticipate this type of situation and manually focus and wait for him to cross then take photo graph. Is there a auto-focus mode that I can use to track him as he comes down the third base line.

zeismb said:

But the auto-focus likes the fence and the stand of people in the background. Do I have to anticipate this type of situation and manually focus and wait for him to cross then take photo graph. Is there a auto-focus mode that I can use to track him as he comes down the third base line.

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Looks like you just missed focus. What I do is just follow the runner and press the shutter when I get the shot I want. Big tip in sports is shoot in burst mode and get some fast glass.

I try that and the focus goes to the fence....trying single focus point it is hard to keep the focus point on the runner. I am going to try the 3D mode because manual says it is more based on the color of the subject originally focused on to determine which focus points to use.

Noon question what is fast glass?

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zeismb said:

Noon question what is fast glass?

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I call fast glass AF-S lens and 1.8 or 2.8 constant aperture throughout zoom range of lens.

Best advise I can give you is keep shooting and keep asking questions.
When your at a game take 500+ pics. Your keeper rate will go up with time.

It's not unusual for me to take 750 - 1000 pics at a game to get the 5 or so pristine pics to use in a paper or publication.

Also learn to use Back button AF-C focus.

zeismb said:

...the auto-focus likes the fence and the stand of people in the background. Do I have to anticipate this type of situation and manually focus and wait for him to cross then take photo graph. Is there a auto-focus mode that I can use to track him as he comes down the third base line.

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Which is the focus of what you are trying to capture: home plate or the base runner? If you said home plate, go stand in the corner.

For subjects in motion, use AF-C (Auto Focus-Continuous) mode and focus on the runner, then track him as he runs towards the plate. You may have to toy with Matrix or center weighted metering for the best results. The fence and the crowd are fairly close, and the camera may shift focus when you don't want it to while in Matrix. If you use center weighted and focus on the runner's chest, this shouldn't be an issue.

aced19 said:

Your keeper rate will go up with time...It's not unusual for me to take 750 - 1000 pics at a game to get the 5 or so pristine pics to use in a paper or publication.

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That's a 0.5% keeper rate, well below the 30% norm. If you are taking that many shots, you may want to re-evaluate the spray-n-pray shooting method and be more selective about your shots. The goal with getting more keepers is quality, not quantity.

Browncoat said:

That's a 0.5% keeper rate, well below the 30% norm. If you are taking that many shots, you may want to re-evaluate the spray-n-pray shooting method and be more selective about your shots. The goal with getting more keepers is quality, not quantity.

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I didn't make myself clear after reading my post lol.
I get 50%+ on keepers.
But I was talking about the pristine photo/ magazine quality. When I take a 1000 shots I get 600 or so good photos. But out of that 600 there will only be a handful on what I call perfect pics.

What does it mean by cropping????