As one can quickly gather while viewing my website, I rarely shoot portraits of people. But, I always make a point of capturing some images of the baseball players who I coach each season.

Since I hadn't set up my Einstein studio lights in a year, it took me a while to figure out how to get started. Before long, two of the strobes were triggering at what I thought were the appropriate settings. I placed one strobe inside of a large softbox and positioned it to the left of my camera (my main light). I fired another strobe into an umbrella and faced it towards the white seamless paper background. I used a large piece of white foamboard for my fill. It was kind of nice having complete control over the lighting--which is very different from shooting landscapes!

I used the Nikon D800 for all of the shots. I alternated between the Nikon 70-200 2.8 and the Nikon 200 f/2 throughout the photo shoot. Both lenses are excellent, but the Nikon 200 f/2 is in a league of its own. It might be Nikon's sharpest lens.

For camera settings, I used an aperture of f/8 for every picture for ultimate sharpness. I used a shutter speed of 1/250th--which is fast enough to remove all of the ambient lighting. The ISO was set at the base level of 100 for the D800--which is optimal for image quality. The strobes were set to generate the appropriate amount of light for the right exposure at those camera settings.

Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot:

Cooper SigelCooper Sigel of the 9U Orland Park Warriors in Orland Park, Illinois on May 13, 2016 Connor O'ReillyConnor O'Reilly of the 9U Orland Park Warriors in Orland Park, Illinois on May 13, 2016 Rafe SlagerRafe Slager of the 9U Orland Park Warriors in Orland Park, Illinois on May 13, 2016 Conner StackConner Stack of the 9U Orland Park Warriors in Orland Park, Illinois on May 13, 2016 Zach HniloZach Hnilo of the 9U Orland Park Warriors in Orland Park, Illinois on May 13, 2016 It's always a lot of fun spending time with these nine year old players. And, this photo shoot was no exception.

To view more of the images, please CLICK HERE.