It's Baseball Season Down South (Page 2): Will try that, it is amazing how you can pull stuff in with this lens. I thought my 300 mm f4 was the ticket, this may be more fun.

98corvette Loc: Macon, Georgia

Rich1939 wrote:

The EXIF data shows that you were zoomed to 267mm. At f/10 for 267mm focused at 300 feet your depth of field is ~258 feet. That easily covers from 1st to home and beyond. You could open up to f/8 no problem and still have plenty of DOF coverage, Up your shutter speed to 1/1000 or so. Want to take it further? bump the ISO and go to 1/2000

Will try that, it is amazing how you can pull stuff in with this lens. I thought my 300 mm f4 was the ticket, this may be more fun.

malawibob Loc: South Carolina

Need to get a bunch of shovels working at Fenway!!

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

98corvette wrote:

Was shooting a college baseball game from right field fence with my Sigma 150-500 mm ISO 500, 1/800 sec, at f10. If I got the batter in focus what do I have to do to get the ball in focus, at the same time? Is there something I am missing? Distance to batter is about 300 feet Do I stop down more?
Boston you should be so lucky to see the baseball unless it was orange!!

Stopping down will not get the ball in focus. The f/10 is fine as the players are in focus. If you really want the ball without blur, you will need to kick up the shutter and the ISO to compensate. You would have to experiment to see if 1/1000 or 1200 would be enough.

mrtobin Loc: North East Ohio

98corvette wrote:

Was shooting a college baseball game from right field fence with my Sigma 150-500 mm ISO 500, 1/800 sec, at f10. If I got the batter in focus what do I have to do to get the ball in focus, at the same time? Is there something I am missing? Distance to batter is about 300 feet Do I stop down more?
Boston you should be so lucky to see the baseball unless it was orange!!

Of course the ball is blurred, it's moving. The players are relatively standing still. With the settings that you gave your dof will be around 42 feet. You could open up a bit to gain a faster shutter speed, but probably won't make much difference. F/8= 33 feet, F/5.6=23 feet, f/4=16feet,
dof is not the problem.

The ball should be blurred to show movement. It would look silly frozen in space, much like wheels on a moving car, if the wheels are not blurred it looks as if the car is parked.

As an aside, if you shoot in "burst mode", you can capture the ball closer to the batter. Maybe capturing the batter making contact with the ball, or whiffing and the catcher catching the ball:)

Meives Loc: FORT LAUDERDALE

98corvette wrote:

Was shooting a college baseball game from right field fence with my Sigma 150-500 mm ISO 500, 1/800 sec, at f10. If I got the batter in focus what do I have to do to get the ball in focus, at the same time? Is there something I am missing? Distance to batter is about 300 feet Do I stop down more?
Boston you should be so lucky to see the baseball unless it was orange!!

Your picture is not bad To stop the ball you maiy have to speed up your shutter speed to 1/1600. This would require the ISO to dubble to ISO 1000 or open aperture to f 8. I think it is blurred by motion, not out of focus. David Only other thing is buy a faster more expensive lens.

98corvette Loc: Macon, Georgia

mrtobin wrote:

Of course the ball is blurred, it's moving. The pl... (show quote)

I did the fast shutter with the Atlanta Braves (AAA) squad in Buford. Used my 70-200 but was sitting at the end of the dugout. Got some great shots.

98corvette Loc: Macon, Georgia

Meives wrote:

Your picture is not bad To stop the ball you maiy have to speed up your shutter speed to 1/1600. This would require the ISO to dubble to ISO 1000 or open aperture to f 8. I think it is blurred by motion, not out of focus. David Only other thing is buy a faster more expensive lens.

Thanks it has been cold 46 deg. and windy no fun taking pictures, supposed to be nice over the weekend and Mercer is at home.

cabunit Loc: SE Connecticut

As several have stated, you're seeing motion blur in the ball. Some math may help here. Say it's a 90 mph fastball. That's about 136 ft per second, or upwards of 1600 inches per second. So in that 1/800 of a second your shutter was open, the ball moved about two inches, or about 2/3 of its diameter (typical diameter is about 2.9 inches), which seems about right from your shot.

To come even close to freezing the ball--to keep its motion down to, say, a quarter inch, you'd need a shutter speed of 1/6400 of a second.

But I also agree with the folks who say the apparent motion here is appropriate. So...good enough in my book!

98corvette Loc: Macon, Georgia

cabunit wrote:

As several have stated, you're seeing motion blur ... (show quote)

Thank you for you calculations. I appreciate your input. 20 degrees this morning and I am staying inside.