A Decent Game

When you shoot 20 Spring Training games and 81 home games you are sure to have some bad games, so you really appreciate the good ones, today was one of those good ones. The weather was nice so I decided to put my 2x converter on my 400mm lens. Shooting baseball with an 800 is risky when you are so close as is the case in a minor league stadium. There is very little room in the frame for hitters and pitchers, you pretty much have to shoot the outfielders or hope that the action will fit in the frame.

With the shot of Carp I was on the field about 60 feet behind the catcher while he was warming up in the bullpen. The Jon Jay leaping catch is the kind of shot that you are thankful that you have a converter on. The ball kept tailing away and I just stayed on Jon as he climbed the wall. Exposure, composition, and timing all fell in place for this image. After the 5th inning since the game was close I decided to shoot without the converter in case something happened. The double play is the old stand-by in baseball photography, focus on second base and let the action happen. The thing that makes this a nice shot to have is when the infielder jumps over the runner, many times it is just a boring routine shot, we had both today as shown.

The last shot was taken after Joe Mather hit a walk-off 2 run home run in the bottom of the 9th against the Red Sox, the light was great and it is just a nice celebration shot.