Minor League Baseball Photography

[TSLevin95]

I just got my media pass to photograph a local minor league baseball team. I've never done this type of photography before, so I'm not sure with some things. If anyone has tips for this type of sports photography, that would be great. The equipment I have for sports photography is a Nikon D600 body, 1.7x teleconverter, Nikon 200mm f2.8 (delivering soon), Nikon 70-200mm f2.8, Nikon 80-400 f4.5-5.6, and a monopod.

What should be the best mode to shoot in? I heard aperture priority. What lens should I use? Should I use my teleconverter? Should I shoot raw or JPEG with high quality and medium size files?

Most of the time I will be fairly close to the action, in the photographer's box next to the dugout.

If anyone is familiar with baseball photography and can give me some pointers and tips and how they shoot including their settings, that would be great.

Thank you in advanced for your tips!

 

[Derrel]

Salem-Keizer Volcanoes Baseball Photo Gallery by Steve at pbase.com

Lots of SF GIants minor league affiliate shots here. This guy captures the flavor of most games. You ought to be able to figure out about where he stations himself off the field in order to capture action at the various places around the diamond.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I haven't done baseball except for Little League some years ago, I've shot minor league hockey so am used to dealing with low light instead of broad daylight.

You could look at Sports Photography and Photojournalism for Professional Photographers and Photography | SportsShooter.com - there are pros on there who shoot baseball, Brad Mangin is one whose name comes to mind, Robert Seale, Rod Mar - might be early for them to have baseball on their current pages. Bert Hanashiro shoots for USA Today and is one of the founders of the site. If you just search 'baseball' you should find plenty of articles; anything you can read by Peter Read Miller would probably be worthwhile, and you should find the article by The Photodude on behavior in the photo well...

One valuable thing I learned is to go early, sometimes you can get some interesting photos pregame/during warmups - in-game portraits, players in or coming out of the tunnel, signing an autograph, etc. Or maybe even go to a practice if you can, starting out you might want to do some test shots. I did photos for marketing purposes which the team didn't need til prep for the next season, but generally you need to learn how to get good photos in camera because in sports they might potentially need photos right away.

Sounds like you'll have a nice vantage point and a great opportunity, have fun.