Photographing Your Baseball Star

At this time of the year, most baseball is over for the year, unless you live in Florida.  Ah, baseball nirvana, year round baseball for the baseball maniac. And like most of us, it is your kids / "baseball stars" that are playing the game and your somewhere running around trying to get those "Sports Illustrated Cover shots".  You know the ones of your child making that leaping catch, or hitting that grand slam home run!  Well, its a little tougher than you think, given that you have to have the right play and the right lighting. And if your baseball star is playing "under the lights" at night, this brings a whole different "photo game" and a new set of rules that are different than daylight shooting. You have to figure out your lighting, your distance, aperture setting and of course your shutter speed.  Don't forget that item on the camera called "ISO", this is the rate at which the camera absorbs the light.  The higher the ISO the faster the camera will absorb light, given all the other settings, aperture, shutter speed, whether you have fill flash etc. Please note that too much of a good thing will cause you distress, as you go higher on the ISO scale your photos start to get "noise" or pixelate. These are little white spots all over the photo that washes out your possible "Sports Illustrated Cover shot".  You  have to be able to set your shutter speed fast enough to catch the game winning homer, but not destroy the quality of your photos. The photos you see here were shot with an ISO of 400, shutter speed of 1/60th of second and a135mm lens f/2.8, with a Nikon Speed Light SB-800 flash.  And yes, I was on the field (something you have to do to get those great shots). Of course, there are many variables and possible settings on your camera, but you have to work with the equipment you have, vary your settings till you get the results you want.  Keep shooting, keep shooting, it is the only way to learn about your camera and your photographic abilities that come from your "photo eye", which needs lots of stimulation to get the right photos. With a little practice,  you'll get the photo you want of your little Jeter making the big play!!