Baseball Photography

[groundloop]

what can I do to produce the best images possible?

Upgrade your glass. Sell the 75-300. The 55-250, for less than $200 used, is better than your 75-300. The 70-200 f/4L for about $550 used is much better than the 55-250. Other brands are an option too.

Choose a faster shutter at the expense of a higher iso. Sharp with grain is better than clean and blurry.

BINGO. I had the 75-300 IS and found that it had serious problems over about 200 mm when the f-stop was anywhere near wide open (which is exactly where you'll be at for shooting sports). I replaced it with a 55-250 and had much better results. And I recently was able to purchase a used 70-200 f4 L (non IS) for under $500, it's a great lens with very fast autofocus.

 

[imagemaker46]

what can I do to produce the best images possible?

Upgrade your glass. Sell the 75-300. The 55-250, for less than $200 used, is better than your 75-300. The 70-200 f/4L for about $550 used is much better than the 55-250. Other brands are an option too.

Choose a faster shutter at the expense of a higher iso. Sharp with grain is better than clean and blurry.

BINGO. I had the 75-300 IS and found that it had serious problems over about 200 mm when the f-stop was anywhere near wide open (which is exactly where you'll be at for shooting sports). I replaced it with a 55-250 and had much better results. And I recently was able to purchase a used 70-200 f4 L (non IS) for under $500, it's a great lens with very fast autofocus.

"which is exactly where you'll be at for shooting sports" Really? Exactly?

 

[samfoster]

I'm a big baseball fan and have shot games on several occasions. I also shoot sports periodically for my school's paper. Get the longest fastest glass you can afford. With daytime baseball games its not so much of an issue, but for indoor sports like basketball a camera with a high ISO range like he 7D, 6D and the 5D MKIII are great.

Use a zone focus approach to yield more keepers and know the game. If the bases are loaded, focus on home-plate in case there is a play at home, if there's runner on first and someone up to bat focus around 2nd base for a play at 2nd. Study sports shots that you like and try to figure out how they were shot.

Then for salvage shots, shoot things like pitcher's pitching and batter's batting, but its really the action shots and catching the big play that make for dynamic and sought after shots.

Some sort of camera stabilization like a monopod is also very helpful, for rec league, college and HS games you can usually use them but for pro games it depends on the stadium and usually only the folks with press credentials get to use them.