Noon games are the worst. I'm not sure what kind of stadium or access you have, but be sure to move around. Get behind the batter to get a nice shot of the pitcher. Get straight on from first to second if they allow steeling; get low and the slide back when they check the runner. Also be sure to watch the batters and the fielders and maybe predict.

The biggest thing on these is getting to field level, which will give you a unique view from what most people see in the stands:

I have never shot sports really because I don't own any BIG FAST GLASS and that seems to be a requirement for that game if your into sports photography. If it cant be shot with a 200mm f4.5 lens then I am out of luck, I am hoping at some point to find a used 300mm Nikkor (NOT AN f2/8) that I can stomach the price on but I am not holding my breath.


Nice photos by the way.

Nice to see I am not alone in my baseball struggles , I adjusted my settings and moved around some in my newest batch . Terrible fighting the rain and all that today

Too many shots of the players' backs. When shooting from behind home focus on the pitcher. Move around to get the other bases. To get the batter/catcher move to between home and 1st. It seems like there are some focus issues also. Keep shooting!

Well, your metering mode shouldn't affect your focus. Admittedly I'm shooting with much older bodies and I'm not the least bit familiar with the massive 50+ AF sensors. I'd spend some time studying that area of the manual. I presume you're in continuous focus mode, though, if it's changing the subject on you. Might be worth ditching that for a while. Depending on your body it may be very easy to re-focus. On my D2H I can assign the thumb button to focus and keep my finger on the shutter. In cases where the subject is typically stationary (like a base position) with moments of motion it might be better to get good at manually reacquiring focus.

The 70-200 is a great lens but as you've discovered not great for much of sports photography where you have to be able to reach out to the subject. You might find it beneficial to invest in a quality 1.4x teleconverter. You'll lose a stop but bumping the ISO should help with that. I'm sure most if not all current cameras will also retain AF but you'll want to confirm with your particular gear.

If possible I shoot with manual exposure, most metering just gets confused with sports stuff it seems in certain conditions. I tried all the different exposure modes and settled on matrix for best results with outdoor daytime sports, aperture priority. For indoor, nighttime outdoor lighting, or overcast it seems like I get better results from manual. Auto color can't adapt to discontinuous light sources like mercury vapor or fluorescent, preset/metered color balance helps a lot with that.

One thing on AF is that only the center focus point has crossed sensors on the D200 IIRC, in tough conditions that point will give you better results than others. A really annoying characteristic is that there is a lot of room between the center sensor and any others which makes the dynamic and group dynamic sensor patterns a lot less useful. When shooting verticals I use the group dynamic setting frequently, with the pattern that picks the center AF point and the group on the top of the frame, but for baseball I generally don't have a lens long enough to take advantage of that.

Baseball is by far my least favorite sport to shoot, although if I had the opportunity to shoot at an MLB game with the vantage points and lighting that they have I'd be a lot happier camper I'm almost exclusively behind the fence so can't get a low angle viewpoint. Never fails it seems that I'm in the wrong place, wrong lens setting or whatever when something happens. That and never seeming to have a long & fast enough lens... I have a 70-200 2.8 and a 1.4x converter and long for a 120-300 2.8. And a new camera. Youth/HS baseball fields almost universally have horrible lighting to even try to shoot at night.

Monopod is really a must for baseball both for stability and just the fact that you're there for hours and need something to hold up the camera.


Never seems like I have enough shutter speed for sharpness or enough telephoto to get in close enough. That's 1/500 and cropped quite a bit and a bit mushy. Should have gone to higher ISO.


All of that is good advice. I've been trying a lot of different angles of pitchers with the batter/catcher in the foreground, depending on what is available at the fields.




Helps if you're at an MLB ballpark with actual dugouts (now how do I get that gig....) The "human highlight reel" for a subject doesn't hurt either


I find softball to be tremendously easier to shoot than baseball. Field is smaller, action moves a little slower, and LOTS more action as far as hitting, fielding and baserunning.

I love shooting in the rain, seems like I get some really cool photos when I shoot in the rain. Shot a football game last year in an utter downpour and got some neat stuff.

With a D200 it just seemed like I had exposures all over the place if I used spot or center. Generally when I'm shooting sports I want a shorter depth of field and need shutter speed anyway so just pick the (fast) aperture I want - if I see the shutter going places I don't want it to go I'll adjust the ISO, or aperture if needed. YMMV I guess.

Never shot sports with a flash. Most indoor venues have just enough light to get by, although if I had a camera that could do 6400 ISO I'd be happier.

Don't shoot much soccer, but I did use a monopod when shooting from the side lines. Shooting from the end lines I went handheld.

Thanks, I liked the way that one came out.

On the focus tracking on a D200 (and other cameras I'm sure) there is a setting for "release time" (IIRC), which allows the focus point to go off the subject just for an instant and then back without losing focus on the subject. I run that at maximum (longest) time which seems to give me the best results. Only downside is if you are focused on a player, then change to a different player you need to release the shutter button then half press again, or you have to wait for that release time to pass before it will refocus. Although it's a small fraction of a second even at the longest delay.