monkeyleader
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 500
- Name
- Nigel
- Edit My Images
- No
Morning all,
Mainly a football shooter, I recently covered cricket (3 of the ODIs (ENG v NZ) and then Queens) ... I have to say while I didn't mind shooting cricket I was surprised as to how much I enjoyed shooting the tennis. It took me a day or so to really get into my grove and my hat is tipped to those top guys in the field of tennis photography who consistently churn out top class images. I think I enjoyed it as it really does push (well IMO) your technical abilities, especially when shooting on anything longer than 300mm (I was on 70-200mm and 400mm, the latter of which I loved some of the results but it was a hell of a risk given how close you were) as well as getting one's creative juices flowing trying to look for that something different. Sadly we only had some very nice light on perhaps one or two of the evenings
Going back to the lens choice I was a little surprised at neither the cricket or the tennis I saw anyone shooting with the Canon 200-400 f/4 (1.4x), which felt like it may be the perfect lens for these kind of sports, giving one the flexibility to shoot at 300mm for the tennis or 560mm for the cricket .... with also other options through the range ... (of course for the ODI Day/night games f/4 may become a bit of a struggle ... ) I know it's an bloody expensive lens but still quite surprised to not see anyone (perhaps there was and I just missed it)
Some lessons learnt
- As with any event it's critical that you do your research. One glaring mistake I made for the cricket was to know at the least the basics of fielding setup .. as during the first test I plonked myself down in line with fielders. Thankfully there was space to move around.
- Clean backgrounds in tennis really do help things so much .. I look forward to the auto-clone-out-linejudge update from Adobe in the near future
- Was interested in tennis my differing results with the AF techniques .. having had reasonable success with locking on centre point with expanded (moving it from left to right depending on where the player was positioned) I then tried activating all focus points across the zone ... okay there was a risk that the racquet became active, but it seemed to help with the success rate (shooting 1DX) ... Not sure what others have found to be the best success rate
- I really don't like the results on my 1.4x .... I'm wondering is it worth the effort in getting my 400mm and 1.4x calibrated by Canon or even if such a thing is doable?
- I loved the effect 400mm gives (to really zap away the background) but it comes at a big risk given how tight you are shooting
- take stretchy pants ... my god they fed you like it was your last meal .... back to 2 day old sandwiches and scowling before long !
Had a few usages come through as well, which is pleasing considering the competition that was in attendance ..... I'm sure at some point I'll stick something up on the blog with a more detailed review of my time at the Tennis for those interested ..
cheers,
Nigel
Mainly a football shooter, I recently covered cricket (3 of the ODIs (ENG v NZ) and then Queens) ... I have to say while I didn't mind shooting cricket I was surprised as to how much I enjoyed shooting the tennis. It took me a day or so to really get into my grove and my hat is tipped to those top guys in the field of tennis photography who consistently churn out top class images. I think I enjoyed it as it really does push (well IMO) your technical abilities, especially when shooting on anything longer than 300mm (I was on 70-200mm and 400mm, the latter of which I loved some of the results but it was a hell of a risk given how close you were) as well as getting one's creative juices flowing trying to look for that something different. Sadly we only had some very nice light on perhaps one or two of the evenings
Going back to the lens choice I was a little surprised at neither the cricket or the tennis I saw anyone shooting with the Canon 200-400 f/4 (1.4x), which felt like it may be the perfect lens for these kind of sports, giving one the flexibility to shoot at 300mm for the tennis or 560mm for the cricket .... with also other options through the range ... (of course for the ODI Day/night games f/4 may become a bit of a struggle ... ) I know it's an bloody expensive lens but still quite surprised to not see anyone (perhaps there was and I just missed it)
Some lessons learnt
- As with any event it's critical that you do your research. One glaring mistake I made for the cricket was to know at the least the basics of fielding setup .. as during the first test I plonked myself down in line with fielders. Thankfully there was space to move around.
- Clean backgrounds in tennis really do help things so much .. I look forward to the auto-clone-out-linejudge update from Adobe in the near future
- Was interested in tennis my differing results with the AF techniques .. having had reasonable success with locking on centre point with expanded (moving it from left to right depending on where the player was positioned) I then tried activating all focus points across the zone ... okay there was a risk that the racquet became active, but it seemed to help with the success rate (shooting 1DX) ... Not sure what others have found to be the best success rate
- I really don't like the results on my 1.4x .... I'm wondering is it worth the effort in getting my 400mm and 1.4x calibrated by Canon or even if such a thing is doable?
- I loved the effect 400mm gives (to really zap away the background) but it comes at a big risk given how tight you are shooting
- take stretchy pants ... my god they fed you like it was your last meal .... back to 2 day old sandwiches and scowling before long !
Had a few usages come through as well, which is pleasing considering the competition that was in attendance ..... I'm sure at some point I'll stick something up on the blog with a more detailed review of my time at the Tennis for those interested ..
cheers,
Nigel
