Some Baseball. Vienna Wanderers vs. Diving Ducks at Wr. Neustadt

Diving Ducks Batting
600mm, f5.6, 1/800s, ISO200

Time to shoot some action, haven't done it for a while
Been in Prague, Czech with my JBModel stand for last few days (no time for real shooting...) but today, back in Vienna, had to test new 300mm f2.8 lens!
Austrian Baseball League moved into their finals and today Vienna Wanderers played Diving Ducks in Wiener Neustadt. This is was 2nd game of the finals. Weather was good sunny with some clouds and dry. Perfect conditions with soft light and relatively bright. Next weekend I will follow further games.

It was purely one lens day, as I mentioned 300 mm and few times I mounted also 2x converter which gave me focal length of 600 mm! Problem with the converter though is that you loose 2 stops of light (from f2.8 to f5.6) and focus is slightly slower. In any case it is great and cheaper solution and worth trying.

My Press card helped me to get in without any questions and was able to shoot the game from and around dugouts. Every inning or so I kept changing position to get different angle and also when sun broke through I wanted to have it behind me. Most of the time though sun was behind the clouds.

Double Play by Diving Ducks
300mm, 1/1600s, f2.8, ISO400

To freeze the action you need at least 1/500s but in some really fast action cases that is not enough, 1/1000s or more is better. I switched on AV (aperture priority) mode and set F to 2.8 and while shooting kept monitoring the settings provided by the camera. When thicker clouds came in I pumped up ISO to 400, when I mounted converter and lost light... again pumped up ISO to compensate that loss. Besides that I left everything else to camera's brain. Continuous shooting mode and continuous focusing most of the time set to middle point. One more thing... monopod, you simply cannot hand hold this weight for long and monopod is a must.

Vienna Wanderers Pitching
300mm, 1/800s, f2.8, ISO400

Few more words about lens settings... mainly I want to mention stabilization. You are buying more expensive lenses with stabilizer and one might think it would do miracles. Well, no. When you mount such lens on a tripod you should actually switch stabilizer off. When you shoot with speeds 1/500s, 1/1000s and more stabilizer can do more damage than good, and on top of that it slows focusing system and drains battery faster.

Close play at second base
600mm, 1/1000s, f5.6, ISO800

Diving Ducks Hitting
300mm, 1/1000s, f2.8, ISO400

Then it all comes down to following the game and trying to capture "those moments" and being in the right place in the right time. I was hoping for some heavy action by home plate, especially when teams had runners on 3rd with 1 or 2 outs but it was not written to be.
I managed thought to capture tagging attempts at 2nd base during stealing and throw to 1st during double play.

More pictures in the gallery: Vienna Wanderers vs. Diving Ducks

Baseball is fun to shoot. Hope to have get more great shot next weekend.

Cheers
Jerzy