# ball on the bat... frustration leads to cheating....



## jdramirez (Apr 22, 2015)

I photograph my little girls softball team.... And I do ok... I do great considering my price of zero.

I chase the white whale of prefect timing when the ball gets smushed down when contact is made. This is a tough go, but I think I'm going to just cheat and video the action at 720p, 60 fps, Iso 160, and with full daylight and f2.8, I'm looking at roughly 1/4000 of a second shutter speed.

So I can extract a clip from the video and I think the shot will be what I want, but just very low resolution. So if 1080p is basically 3mp, then 720p is 1.5 mp... Which sounds awful.... So what about 1080p @ 30 fps... Is 30 fps good enough.... Or 60 the way to go?


----------



## meywd (Apr 22, 2015)

maybe 10k FPS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFlEIybC7rU


----------



## jdramirez (Apr 22, 2015)

In physics, around 1994, (God I'm getting old), I saw a poster that described the baseball flattening out like a pancake on both sides, so the poster wasn't all wrong, just a little wrong because that outside edge held its own.

While I'm at it... I guess I was wrong that the 5d mkiii was more than adequate for my needs. Damn you Canon for not providing me 4k at 10k fps...






meywd said:


> maybe 10k FPS
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFlEIybC7rU


----------



## agierke (Apr 22, 2015)

i used to photograph a lot of highschool sports and did my fare share of baseball and softball. what i learned from my experience was that every sport has a particular timing to it that i would next to adjust my anticipation of the action. 

baseball and softball were unique in that they had different aspects of the game where the anticipation of the action changed. anticipation for fielding was different from pitching was different from hitting. because of these differences i found trying to follow the game as it played out was nearly impossible. instead i chose to focus on the different aspects individually. one inning i was only concerned with catching the action at the plate. the next inning id focus on the pitch...the next fielding..etc.

to help me anticipate the action during any of the sports, i really started using both my eyes while shooting. keeping both eyes opened allowed me to time the action with my one eye (viewing the scene outside the viewfinder) while capturing the moment with my other eye (keeping it on the viewfinder so that composition and focus were achieved as per my desire).

it took a bit of practice but i found this method to be highly effective in getting the moments i wanted pretty regularly. all this while shooting with a 5dc and a 70-200mm 2.8...so no real benefit from high fps or pro level AF system. see attached example shot.

with a 5d3 i think i would probably still employ using both eyes but have an even easier time with the better focusing system and fps. i wouldn't feel compelled to go to video and lose resolution.


----------



## jdramirez (Apr 22, 2015)

I use both eyes... I use back focus and take a single shot and try to time it out. It is a challenge... I just want to get something down... A fall back... And then keep trying from there.



agierke said:


> i used to photograph a lot of highschool sports and did my fare share of baseball and softball. what i learned from my experience was that every sport has a particular timing to it that i would next to adjust my anticipation of the action.
> 
> baseball and softball were unique in that they had different aspects of the game where the anticipation of the action changed. anticipation for fielding was different from pitching was different from hitting. because of these differences i found trying to follow the game as it played out was nearly impossible. instead i chose to focus on the different aspects individually. one inning i was only concerned with catching the action at the plate. the next inning id focus on the pitch...the next fielding..etc.
> 
> ...


----------



## Halfrack (Apr 22, 2015)

Practice with someone in a batting cage? It comes down to determining what body part on the player moves in time to trigger your reaction. Maybe start with using a tripod and a wired cable release, so you can be more observant to the player?


----------



## FTb-n (Apr 22, 2015)

agierke said:


> i used to photograph a lot of highschool sports and did my fare share of baseball and softball. what i learned from my experience was that every sport has a particular timing to it that i would next to adjust my anticipation of the action.
> 
> baseball and softball were unique in that they had different aspects of the game where the anticipation of the action changed. anticipation for fielding was different from pitching was different from hitting. because of these differences i found trying to follow the game as it played out was nearly impossible. instead i chose to focus on the different aspects individually. one inning i was only concerned with catching the action at the plate. the next inning id focus on the pitch...the next fielding..etc.
> 
> ...


+1
Timing is everything in sports. I think FPS is overrated -- it's too easy to feel confident that a 10 FPS 7D2 or a 12 FPS 1Dx equates to masterful sports shots. There are certainly aspects of many sports where wise use of these frame rates will help. But, there are many more where timing is the key.

I can relate to every point that you make and these challenges are the very reason why I love shooting sports. To me, sports photography is itself a sport.


----------



## jdramirez (Apr 23, 2015)

Halfrack said:


> Practice with someone in a batting cage? It comes down to determining what body part on the player moves in time to trigger your reaction. Maybe start with using a tripod and a wired cable release, so you can be more observant to the player?



I usually focus on the ball with the intention of hitting the shutter before the ball enters the strike zone... I get several non shots... just people standing looking at the ball... but that hasn't been that effective.


----------



## bholliman (Apr 24, 2015)

jdramirez said:


> Halfrack said:
> 
> 
> > Practice with someone in a batting cage? It comes down to determining what body part on the player moves in time to trigger your reaction. Maybe start with using a tripod and a wired cable release, so you can be more observant to the player?
> ...



I have he same issue. I start a burst just as the ball gets to the plate, but often just capture a swing and miss or the batter watching the ball go by. Maybe 1/100 decent shots when the non contact pitches are included.


----------



## jdramirez (Apr 24, 2015)

bholliman said:


> I have he same issue. I start a burst just as the ball gets to the plate, but often just capture a swing and miss or the batter watching the ball go by. Maybe 1/100 decent shots when the non contact pitches are included.



I've mulled over a few things... maybe going with a tripod mount and shooting at 1/60 of a second... so I get a ton more motion blur... and somewhere in that blur... is the ball being hit. 

It's fun... there are many ways to skin this cat...


----------



## Halfrack (Apr 24, 2015)

jdramirez said:


> I usually focus on the ball with the intention of hitting the shutter before the ball enters the strike zone... I get several non shots... just people standing looking at the ball... but that hasn't been that effective.



How does left-handed verses right handed batters work for you? 1 out of 100 isn't that bad - those are odds most folks would take any day. PhotoMechanic to quickly remove the shots that weren't just perfect.


----------



## jdramirez (Apr 25, 2015)

Halfrack said:


> jdramirez said:
> 
> 
> > I usually focus on the ball with the intention of hitting the shutter before the ball enters the strike zone... I get several non shots... just people standing looking at the ball... but that hasn't been that effective.
> ...



Our team is entirely comprised of right handed batters... so that makes it easier for me. But when I'm on the wrong side of the field... I usually just wait for the follow through... which can be dramatic in and of itself...


----------



## kirispupis (Apr 27, 2015)

From my limited experience photographing my sons' Little League team, fps does help but the trick is really in timing the swing of the batter. I uses short 3-4 shot bursts and had a fair amount of success in getting the ball. I focused on the batter, so the ball wasn't always in perfect focus but that was OK for my uses. Here is one such shot - probably my luckiest one of all time because my younger son only had two hits the entire season.



First Hit by CalevPhoto, on Flickr


----------



## jdramirez (Apr 27, 2015)

I played with a few things at the last tournament. 

I did some long exposures using a 3x neutral density filter, 1/60 of a second was the best as the ball was blurred as was the bat without deforming the girls' faces too much.

I also did the 60 fps @ 720p... for about 2 minutes then I decided 30 fps @ 1080p should be good enough. I was right to drop the 720p because those images were dreadful, it was almost immediate pixelation... 1080p was passable (and all 4 of the images below are in 1080p) but 30 fps wasn't sufficient. I don't think 60 fps would have been that much better, but I did get more usable images that way... though @ basically 3 megapixels, it wasn't ideal and I wouldn't want it up on my wall.

I kinda think... if I have 4k (which is roughly 12 mp) and 24 or 30 fps... that would be better than shooting a single or burst of shots @ 24+ mp. 

Though... when I exported the tiffs from premiere... I really hated that they weren't raw images that I could further process and develop to my liking, so that was really frustrating... so I just b&w'd all of the images, for printing purposes and because it is (at least I think so) easier to work with.


----------



## jdramirez (Apr 27, 2015)

Here are the 1/40 exposures... not 1/60 as I thought. Timing wasn't bad. I had a wireless shutter release and I looked into the background of the ball's flight path... and when the ball crossed a certain part of the fence, I hit the shutter... and it worked well enough... 

So the question is... was it working well enough because of the long exposure giving me more leeway... or was the background idea a good one... I feel it is a little of both.


----------

