A Day of Baseball with the Canon 5D Mk3 and 7D

June 08, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Well this is hell weekend for me and my staff as we battle through numerous graduations and sports tournament playoff games. Yesterday I was stuck at a baseball park in Lowell MA for close to ten hours. It was a very stressful day. I had to shoot each game and then upload all the photos to our internet sites before the next game started. I had three games to shoot one right after the other with the middle game having both teams in our coverage area. That meant images from both towns had to be up on the towns website before the next game. Ugggh. My main camera for sports action these days is my Canon 7D with an older Canon 300 f2.8. It's still tack sharp even though the focusing on it is much slower than the newer ones. For some reason these games all lacked some really good action but I was able to get something out of each one. The Canon 5D Mk3 was used for shooting first base with the 70-200 and after the game stuff with the 24-70. This system proved to work well as I have used it over the years with success. I used the auto ISO to full advantage for most of the day choosing to shoot at 1/1250s at f5.6 on manual until the lights came on and then I went to ISO 6400 and shot at 1/800s @ 3.2

Needless to say I was looking around for different photos for the blog. Here are a couple shot with the Canon 7D and the 300 2.8. The crop factor for this rig turns out to be a 480mm f 2.8, excellent for sports and other far away objects.

Canon 7D w/Canon 300 f2.8

I noticed these two standing on wires used to make sure cars did not fly off the top of the parking garage across the street from the stadium and I thought it was a cool shot with the lamps.

For a moment I thought I was at Belmont Park waiting for the Belmont Stakes to start. Sun protection, a cool hat, sunglasses, fieldglasses and a racing form? No actually the lineup card for the game.

Here are some shots from the games.

Georgetown's Ben Noelk is out at third after a runndown with Lowell Catholic's James Sullivan in the first inning of Georgetown losing to Lowell Catholic 9-4 in the Div. 4 North Sectional Championship game Saturday, June 7, 2014 at LeLachuer Park in lowell. Wicked Local Staff Photo / Kirk R. Williamson Georgetown's Ben Noelk is forced out at second by Lowell Catholic's James Sullivan in the fifth inning of Georgetown's loss to Lowell Catholic 9-4 in the Div. 4 North Sectional Championship game Saturday, June 7, 2014 at LeLachuer Park in lowell. Wicked Local Staff Photo / Kirk R. Williamson Georgetown's Michael Goddu reacts to Georgetown losing to Lowell Catholic 9-4 in the Div. 4 North Sectional Championship game Saturday, June 7, 2014 at LeLachuer Park in lowell. Wicked Local Staff Photo / Kirk R. Williamson Georgetown's Mike O'Leary wears everyone's rally caps during the last inning of Georgetown's loss to Lowell Catholic 9-4 in the Div. 4 North Sectional Championship game Saturday, June 7, 2014 at LeLachuer Park in lowell. Wicked Local Staff Photo / Kirk R. Williamson Hamilton Wenham's Austen Michel slides back safe to first during The Generals 8-7 loss to North Reading in the Div. 3 North Sectional game at LeLacheur park in Lowell Saturday, June 7, 2014. Wicked Local Staff Photo / Kirk R. Williamson Hamilton Wenham's Austen Michel watches the last at bats for his teammates during The Generals 8-7 loss to North Reading in the Div. 3 North Sectional game at LeLacheur park in Lowell Saturday, June 7, 2014. Wicked Local Staff Photo / Kirk R. Williamson