Nationals Baseball

The June 18, 2021 Nationals vs. Mets game

For the first time since 2019, baseball had reopened to the public. In 2020, I picked up a 500mm f/8 mirror lens, along with a 50-year-old 2x teleconverter. The contrast, sharpness, and overall image quality don't compare to more modern telephoto lenses, not to mention that it's manual focus, but it had one key characteristic that other lenses didn't match: it was under 8 inches in length, which meant you could bring it into Nationals Park.

This meant a chance to take telephoto shots of the game, without the need to crop, and I was looking forward to trying it out!

This was the June 18, 2021 Nationals game against the first-place New York Mets.

Erick Fedde pitched seven strong innings. This shot was with the 2x teleconverter, uncropped.

Nikon Z7 + 500mm f/8 mirror lens + TC-200 2x teleconverter - 1/800 sec at 6400 ISO

Juan Soto up at bat, still early in the game at 7:18pm. After some adjustments in Lightroom, the sharpness and color are still decent, especially given the ISO and the setting sun.

Nikon Z7 + 500mm f/8 mirror lens - 1/1250 sec at 5600 ISO

By this point in the night, I was thrilled with how the lens performed - great shots of the pitchers and batters, and shockingly high quality given the lens and seat.

One learning curve with the lens was how it was entirely manual focus. The Nikon Z7 has focus peaking - highlighting in red when edges are in focus - which made it much, much, easier to quickly get images sharp manually. That being said, it still took some adjustments, moving the camera left to right as Fedde pitched to keep him in frame, or guessing where something might happen to get in focus beforehand.

The Main Event! This was one of the first weekends the Racing Presidents were back for the middle of the fourth inning.

Nikon Z7 + 500mm f/8 mirror lens - 1/800 sec at 6400 ISO

I loved - loved - how many excited fans you could see in the stands, taking photos of the Presidents as they crossed the finish line.

Nikon Z7 + 500mm f/8 mirror lens - 1/800 sec at 6400 ISO

In the bottom of the ninth, game still tied 0-0, Soto advanced to first on a walk.

Nikon Z7 + 500mm f/8 mirror lens - 1/500 sec at 6400 ISO

Ryan Zimmerman hit a single, allowing him to advance to third. This was one photo that turned out sharp - there were another dozen in various stages of blur as I tried to pan-and-refocus as Soto ran the baseline.

Nikon Z7 + 500mm f/8 mirror lens - 1/500 sec at 6400 ISO

I completely missed Yan Gomes' game-winning single, but managed to capture his bat before it hit the ground, along with Trea Turner starting to get up to celebrate the win.

Nikon Z7 + 500mm f/8 mirror lens - 1/500 sec at 6400 ISO

This was a lucky shot - Soto coming in from third to home, with Josh Harrison coming in for the high five.

Nikon Z7 + 500mm f/8 mirror lens - 1/500 sec at 6400 ISO

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