Behind the Photo: Dejah's Return to Hillenbrand

At the game’s conclusion, I was photographing from the first base photo well with a telephoto lens looking for post-game high-fives and hoping for candid moments to develop. Dejah had walked away from the infield toward the visitor bullpen for a TV interview, so I took the opportunity to shoot a few shots of her with a 70-200mm lens at f/2.8 to have on file, then turned my lens back to the scene near the circle.

TECH TALK:

Canon 1DX Mark II DSLR camera

Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS USM III lens

ISO 4000

f/2.8

1/1250th of a second

The main priority in sports photography is frozen action with no motion blur. We achieve this by using a fast shutter speed, ideally 1/1000th of a second or faster. Selecting that fast of a shutter speed at night will not allow in enough light to the sensor, so we make some changes to our ISO and aperture to maintain proper light exposure. Most of our images shot indoors or under the lights are at ISO 3200 or higher. Newer cameras and advanced editing software allow us to fix the digital noise higher ISOs bring with them, so I don’t even flinch about living in the high ISO range.

The final exposure element -- aperture -- not only allows us more light, but ensures the focus is only on our subject and provides for a shallow depth of field. This is where you get that “fall off” in focus which blurs the background. f/2.8 is considered wide-open in terms of light allowance, but also keeps the focus tack sharp on our subject and isolates away from the background to keep the viewer’s eye where the photographer wants it.