Shooting through the fence....

Today was the first day of Umaine Softball and also the first day that we had a sunny day with temps in the 50's! Not much to say other than I am happy for spring's arrival.
Many photographers struggle with shooting through a fence for field sports or glass if you are shooting hockey. There are a few tips to help:

1. Get the lens on the fence/glass (make sure you have a lens hood on though!). It also helps to keep the lens parallel to it. glass especially will really screw up focus if it is out of parallel.

2. Shoot as wide open as possible. You want to throw everything but the subject out of focus. The images below were shot at F4 because I wanted more of the pitcher in focus. If your camera lens combo is struggling, try shooting wider aperture.

3. If you have a focus limiter on your lens, use it. This will prevent focus hunting due to the camera being fooled by the fence.

4. Sometimes it is necessary to add some contrast back into the image in post production. A fence can sometimes wash out an image a bit depending on the conditions.

Here is what I got today with a 300 2.8 lens shooting through a thick chain link fence.

Click the images to see larger.