PShizzy: The Blog

Took a trip up north as part of my July 4th weekend. It’s technically time off, but I’m shooting a fastpitch softball tournament this weekend. We decided to cover a junior all-star game between Show Low and Holbrook, in Arizona. The lighting, as is typical for night youth baseball, was atrocious. But you work with what you have. I actually didn’t intend to shoot, but ended up grabbing a 1D mk2 and a 300 2.8 IS, shooting at 3200 ISO all night. Because I hadn’t intended to shoot, I got to second shoot the game from 3rd base. When we cover a game with 2 people, we each have assignments. 1st base shooter really has to deal with the batters (since most are righties), plays at third, and anything facing them, like lefty pitchers.

3rd base shooter has it easier, dealing with only the left batters (on average 1-2 out of 9 batters), and spending the rest of the time dedicated to covering plays at 2nd, plays facing them, and baserunners. So, when you’re covering a lefty batter, with a man on 1st, and only one out, you see the double play waiting to happen. You also see the runner at first taking a huge lead. You see the defense tighten up, and the pitcher slows his routine. It’s all anticipation at this point. So where do you point the camera? You have to cover the batter, but you have to be ready to catch a runner trying to steal before or during the pitch. If you wait til after a hit, you know have to see if the defense tries to turn a double play, and if the runner can break that double play up by sliding hard. So how do I manage to do all this? Prefocusing. What’s that, you ask? Read on.

Prefocusing is a feature of certain Canon lenses, specifically the big boys, from the 200 2.0 IS on up (and even the older 200 1.8 and up). First, you focus to a specific location. In this case, I focus a bottom point in my camera to second base. Then you press the prefocus SET button on the lens. Then you make sure prefocusing is on. So what’s this mean?

Well I can now shoot as I normally would, looking at the runner, at the batter, even the pitcher. But if something happens, and the play is going to second, I can simply turn the prefocus ring (a solid metal ring, unlike the rubber rings for focusing on those lenses) which will lock focus to the distance at which you set your prefocus earlier. No matter what happens, you can no longer focus as long as that ring is turned. By doing this, I simply have to compose my image, lock the ring, and second base will be in focus. I like this because you can jump to second, lock focus, and let the play develop, such as the slider above. Had I tried a center point focus on either the slider or the 2nd baseman, I would have lost the other one.

With sports that have specific areas of interest, like a basketball rim (for prefocusing a remote), or 2nd base, or the goal on a soccer field, you can set the prefocus on these cameras to give you a jump on the action. It can sometimes mean the difference between catching the play, or just seeing it.

BTW the game itself was fairly exciting, going back and forth, until the 7th and last inning. Tied, Holbrook scored 3 off a home run blast by Ryan Baldonado. In this image Ryan’s teammate is jumping all over him, and the entire team is greeting him, as the catcher for Show Low looks on.

Show Low made a crucial error that possibly cost them the game or extra innings. With one out and a man on first, the batter gets a hit that led to an error. The baserunner took advantage of this, scoring. The batter also tried to stretch the error by going for second base, and was easily tagged out. Instead of a man on first, tying run at the plate with one out, they had no runners and two outs. One pop fly later and the game ended 13-11.

Well, everyone have a happy 4th of July weekend. I’ll try to post at least once during the weekend, but it all depends on the # of games and start times.

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