Baseball

[jake337]

Jacob is having a blast.

Looks like I may be looking for a used 300mm f2.8 afd.

 

[Gary A.]

I like the first one.

 

[jake337]

I like the first one.

Woops

 

[Destin]

Are you shooting full frame or crop?

If you're shooting crop, 70-200 should be adequate for youth baseball. I've found that 300mm is too long for most shots on the youth baseball fields around here, at least on a crop body.

The majority of my high school baseball work occurs between 110-170mm on the local high school field.

You really only need 300+ for the higher levels of baseball where you can't get as close to the field, IME.

YMMV.

 

[Gary A.]

I found a 70-200 on a FF, with a 1.4X works out quite well for baseball. For baseball you really don't need a F/2.8 for isolation. Typically, there is enough open field behind the action to minimize a distracting background, without the need of a wide aperture DOF.

 

[jake337]

Are you shooting full frame or crop?

If you're shooting crop, 70-200 should be adequate for youth baseball. I've found that 300mm is too long for most shots on the youth baseball fields around here, at least on a crop body.

The majority of my high school baseball work occurs between 110-170mm on the local high school field.

You really only need 300+ for the higher levels of baseball where you can't get as close to the field, IME.

YMMV.

Nikon Df so full frame. It might just be an excuse to gay the 300mm

I found a 70-200 on a FF, with a 1.4X works out quite well for baseball. For baseball you really don't need a F/2.8 for isolation. Typically, there is enough open field behind the action to minimize a distracting background, without the need of a wide aperture DOF.

See above. But yeah I will probably end up with a used 300mm f4 afd or 180mm f2.8 afd.

I might even get an older 80-200 push/pull cuz I'm a cheap add.

If a used 200mm f2 aid pops up that could be fun

 

[deeky]

I'm going to disagree with a lot of the other posts and say I really like having the 70-300 f/4. Being that they are my kids, I like to be able to focus in a little closer than, say, the newspaper. I like to see that they really are mine and catch the emotions and focus on their face. The extra reach helps me do that.

For example, the two shots below were shot on the Canon 70D (1.6 crop). The first was shot at 300mm, the second at only 250mm, but that's the emotion I'm talking about (he was calling out the outs/play).

Yeah, I know they need straightening, but I didn't want to do any cropping since that's the issue here.

IMG_3561 by breckmiller, on Flickr

IMG_3564 by breckmiller, on Flickr