The Pitch

[Darren Mathews]

Similar to beachcomber's Dart Shot I asked my son to pitch the ball right at me while I took the picture.

Actually, I suspended a baseball with a fishing pole in front of the camera mounted on a tripod and gave the ball a slight spin. I had my son pretend to throw from the mound. A little PS to remove the fishing line, a little Lightroom to add some saturation and vignette. What do you think?

EXIF
Canon 40D + 50mm
Exp: 1/25
Ap: f/7.1
ISO: 400
Flash: not used

[johassler]

I think it's pretty darn cool! I wonder if you spun the ball slower if you'd get a bit more of the stitching?

[CatcherT]

yes, I also think its pretty darn cool! yeah, the stitching might add some appeal for sure.

[Darren Mathews]

He throws a fast curve? Perhaps that's why the stitching appears so blurred.

I probably should have either spun the ball slower or used a faster shutter. If I went with a faster shutter, then I would have had to open the aperture. Doing so would have made the pitcher too blurry, which I think he already is. The simple solution would have been just to give the ball a slower spin. Perhaps I'll try this again someday.

[MSidPhoto]

Wow...even though the clarity is less, the idea is amazing

[plus1handicap]

Certainly a very cool shot. Not to nitpick or anything, but no pitch in baseball spins like that. If you are trying to "sell" the photo as an actual pitch you might consider finding a way to rotate the ball end over end (12 to 6 on a clock face) or to a slight angle such (11 to 5 on a clock face).

Good work - just throwing that out there.

[Darren Mathews]

I'm no expert on baseball, but if you apply the right-hand rules of pitching to a left-handed pitcher throwing a slider with a more pronounced sidearm style, the batter will see a ball spinning with a pronounced horizontal spin around a vertical axis. The ball will then tend to break away from a left-handed batter and towards a right-handed batter.

The fault in the photo would be that I spun the ball in the wrong direction or that I used a right-handed pitcher. Guess I'll head to the mound for another shot.

[plus1handicap]

True - you could produce this spin direction as a 90 degree side armer throwing a slider. However the pitcher in the background is not throwing side arm. but again, as a life long pitcher I'm simply being nitpicky. I just figured you would want the ball rotation to match the pitchers body.

A typical slider rotates around a horizontal axis and actually forms a red dot on the lower front of the ball (from batters point of view) from the laces spinning. It is the tell tale sign for recognizing a slider.

Still, it is a very cool shot. Nice work!

[Darren Mathews]

Guess I'll need to teach that little guy how to throw sidearm.

[Psywiped]

change your iso to 200 and you could shoot at 1/50th of a sec