Golf photographers with advice?

antonroland

antonroland

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Hello all

Sat and reviewed a few shots I took at a local golf game recently...

I was reasonably happy with what I got but I am curious as to freezing the club on the impact with the ball.

Conditions were early morning good light just after sunrise and basic EXIF were typically 1/400 shutter at f/3.5 and 165mm on 70-200 with 200 ISO.

This gave me a 3-5 degree blurred club and the ball is also not frozen. I suppose I could have bumped the ISO to 800-1250 or so and gained shutter speed to the tune of 1/1600 sec and still good exposure.

Would this have frozen an unblurred shaft of the golf club?

Let this me a lesson to me to experiment more and not go with the first damn setting that works:bang::bang::bang:

Opinions welcomed:thumbs:
 
If you double the shutter speed you will halve the distance of the motion blur, so 1/800 will give you a 1.5-2.5 degree blur. 1/1600 would make it half that again, so 0.75-1.25 degrees etc..

But why do you want to completely kill the motion? That doesn't sound like a terribly interesting shot to me. If you want a motion free shot, as the club hits the ball, then why not ask the golfer to just hold the club head against the ball, while you fire off a shot at any shutter speed you like? Are you trying to capture the ball deformation as the club squashes into it or something?
 
tdodd said:
If you double the shutter speed you will halve the distance of the motion blur, so 1/800 will give you a 1.5-2.5 degree blur. 1/1600 would make it half that again, so 0.75-1.25 degrees etc..

But why do you want to completely kill the motion? That doesn't sound like a terribly interesting shot to me. If you want a motion free shot, as the club hits the ball, then why not ask the golfer to just hold the club head against the ball, while you fire off a shot at any shutter speed you like? Are you trying to capture the ball deformation as the club squashes into it or something?
Click to expand...


You have a very valid point there...freezing the motion completely would make it a rather boring shot:bonk:

At the distance - full body shot with some f/g grass one would be hard pressed to see the deforming of the ball...

I think what I ultimately wanted was less motion blur and the club on impact or the ball 6-12 inches into flight at the most...

Gives me a reason to go and play again:thumbs:
 
Average club golfer swing speed with driver 90mph, ball speed 125mph (ball speed typically 1.3-1.4x clubhead)

Pro golfer - driver swing speed 120-140mph, ball speed 1.4-1.6x that

To freeze both items stone dead (after the ball leaves the clubface) you'd need a very fast shutter speed, probably beyond 1/1600th of a sec. Golf ball is 1.68" diameter, so you could work it out i guess !
 
If my maths is any good that means the ball, hit by a pro at full swing, would be travelling at 3,432 inches per second. So a shutter speed of 1/3200 would yield a ball movement of about an inch.

It must take quite some skill (practice/luck) to release the shutter at exactly the right moment!!!!!
 
tdodd said:
If my maths is any good that means the ball, hit by a pro at full swing, would be travelling at 3,432 inches per second. So a shutter speed of 1/3200 would yield a ball movement of about an inch.

It must take quite some skill (practice/luck) to release the shutter at exactly the right moment!!!!!
Click to expand...
Does it help that I managed to get a shot of the club face with a slight blur and the ball off the tee and about a foot away from it with a slight movement blur? Only problem was the feet were also blurred and there was a litter bin or something in the background so it went the same way as most of my shots and got binned!!
It was pure fluke and if I tried to do it again I guarantee it would not work :lol:
 
tdodd said:
If my maths is any good that means the ball, hit by a pro at full swing, would be travelling at 3,432 inches per second. So a shutter speed of 1/3200 would yield a ball movement of about an inch.

It must take quite some skill (practice/luck) to release the shutter at exactly the right moment!!!!!
Click to expand...

I have no idea about the maths but a second is a long time....hang on 3 thousand odd or 3,432 as in nearly 3 and a half??:thinking:

I assume the former?:shrug:
 
Three and a half thousand inches per second.

That figure ties up well with your own original findings, measured in angles rather than linear inches.

Head speed = 130 mph
x 1.5 gives ball speed = 195 mph
x 1760 gives 343,200 yards per hour
x 3 gives 1,029,600 feet per hour
x 12 gives 12,355,200 inches per hour
/60 gives 205,920 inches per minute
/60 gives 3,432 inches per second.

In the UK it is customary for the decimal place to be represented by a full stop ".". The comma "," is used to divide up thousands, millions, billions etc..
 
tdodd said:
Three and a half thousand inches per second.

That figure ties up well with your own original findings, measured in angles rather than linear inches.

Head speed = 130 mph
x 1.5 gives ball speed = 195 mph
x 1760 gives 343,200 yards per hour
x 3 gives 1,029,600 feet per hour
x 12 gives 12,355,200 inches per hour
/60 gives 205,920 inches per minute
/60 gives 3,432 inches per second.

In the UK it is customary for the decimal place to be represented by a full stop ".". The comma "," is used to divide up thousands, millions, billions etc..
Click to expand...

Sorry:bonk:

We are a bit slow down here and don't bother with commas and thousands and all 'cause we can't count that high...:lol:

We use commas for decimals cause we understand small numbers a bit...

Thanks for the breakdown of the maths, rather impressive...makes me long for 8-10 fps to play with:D
 
You could use a sound trigger, as shot below, I know the speed of a falling squash ball is no where as fast as club head hitting ball, But it is a start. Next time I get my golf clubs out i will give a go :) The Squash ball was dropped from about 6" onto a blackboard with water on it (I tried it without the water and it was boring shot :)) the shutter was on "Bulb setting" and I used the sound trigger to fire flash unit.
Squash_Ball.jpg
 
Anton Roland said:
...makes me long for 8-10 fps to play with:D
Click to expand...

The trouble with even 10fps is that once hit the ball will travel 343 inches between each frame, so if you don't catch it within the right 1/1000 of a second, or so, you'll have missed it.

The shutter release will need to be accurate to about 1/1000 second in order to catch the ball within 10 inches of the point of impact..

Is your trigger finger that accurate? :D

I tried searching Google Images for a shot like the one you describe. I didn't find one in the first 200+ results.
 
tdodd said:
The trouble with even 10fps is that once hit the ball will travel 343 inches between each frame, so if you don't catch it within the right 1/1000 of a second, or so, you'll have missed it.

The shutter release will need to be accurate to about 1/1000 second in order to catch the ball within 10 inches of the point of impact..

Is your trigger finger that accurate? :D

I tried searching Google Images for a shot like the one you describe. I didn't find one in the first 200+ results.
Click to expand...


My SB800 flash unit speed is 1/41600 sec. at M1/128 output, will that be fast enough?
 
Plenty fast enough. But the problem is not the duration of the flash. The problem is in triggering the flash at exactly the right time to catch the ball in flight.

The next problem is that at 1/128 power you've got a guide number of only 1' at 100 ISO, which is not an especially safe distance and will not illuminate the whole golfer too well. So you'll need to move the flash back a bit, which means bumping the ISO, maybe to 800, but that only extends your istance to 4', and that's assuming you have an f/1.0 lens. So let's assume you're really shooting at f/2.8 and your flash distance is back down to just over 1' again.

Then there is the problem of ambient light. If you're shooting at your sync speed of 1/250 (may be 1/500) at 800 ISO and f/2.8 you're not going to do well on a sunny day. So basically you'll have to have the golfer swinging in the (near) dark in order to avoid overexposing the ambient. But if you're depending on your flash to capture and freeze the action you're talking about a shutter speed of a couple of seconds, with the flash triggered perfectly on time within that 2" shutter interval. So any ambient light at all will kill the shot. Sure, you can go back to 100 ISO and close down the aperture to get a longer exposure and your flash at 1/128 power will be like piddling into the ocean.

I don't think this is an easy shot to pull off without setting up a pretty controlled environment wih some fancy timing/triggering equipment. Far better to keep plugging away at 1/3200, with no flash, until you get a lucky shot.
 
tdodd said:
Plenty fast enough. But the problem is not the duration of the flash. The problem is in triggering the flash at exactly the right time to catch the ball in flight.

The next problem is that at 1/128 power you've got a guide number of only 1' at 100 ISO, which is not an especially safe distance and will not illuminate the whole golfer too well. So you'll need to move the flash back a bit, which means bumping the ISO, maybe to 800, but that only extends your istance to 4', and that's assuming you have an f/1.0 lens. So let's assume you're really shooting at f/2.8 and your flash distance is back down to just over 1' again.

Then there is the problem of ambient light. If you're shooting at your sync speed of 1/250 (may be 1/500) at 800 ISO and f/2.8 you're not going to do well on a sunny day. So basically you'll have to have the golfer swinging in the (near) dark in order to avoid overexposing the ambient. But if you're depending on your flash to capture and freeze the action you're talking about a shutter speed of a couple of seconds, with the flash triggered perfectly on time within that 2" shutter interval. So any ambient light at all will kill the shot. Sure, you can go back to 100 ISO and close down the aperture to get a longer exposure and your flash at 1/128 power will be like piddling into the ocean.

I don't think this is an easy shot to pull off without setting up a pretty controlled environment wih some fancy timing/triggering equipment. Far better to keep plugging away at 1/3200, with no flash, until you get a lucky shot.
Click to expand...

You said it so well:thumbs:

I got a good few that were reasonable...meaning the club face impacting or just past impact and the ball less than 2-3 feet into flight...and that was with the 1Ds II which, at 4 fps is NOT a sport camera...you gotta love the AF response though:nuts:
 
Perhaps your guy wasn't hitting the ball at ~200mph :D
 
tdodd said:
Perhaps your guy wasn't hitting the ball at ~200mph :D
Click to expand...

:lol:

No, they were indeed not. Was a local school golf day and so it was mostly hacking parents and other weekend warriors.

Was good fun though!
 
Wow! What maths!

I was thinking i'd like to do some golfing shots, but i think i've just been put off, it sounds very complicated!
 
tango said:
Wow! What maths!

I was thinking i'd like to do some golfing shots, but i think i've just been put off, it sounds very complicated!
Click to expand...

Naah, you don't need to do the maths to get the shots.

In early morning light - sunrise type of thing - you simply select manual, 800-1250 ISO, f/3.5 4.0 for reasonable DOF and a shutter of 1/1600 or 1/3200 and make gentle adjustments from there. FF focal length will be anything from 135-200 depending on how easy-going your golfers are to get a reasonable full body shot.

As the light intensifies you could maybe go to f/5.6 and/or drop the ISO a bit.

Give it a go!:thumbs:
 
There's no problem taking golf shots per se. The problem is in catching the exact moment when the ball leaves the club face. I don't play golf so it's hard to judge how long a full swing takes, from the start of the backswing to the completed swing and follow-through. Maybe that's around 2-3 seconds in total, so plenty of time to catch something.

Imagine you had a Lamborghini whizzing past you, about 15' away and at 200 mph. Could you fire a shot at the exact moment that the door handle reaches the centre of the frame? I'm pretty sure I couldn't. It would take lots and lots of practice and a fair dose of luck to nail the exact moment.
 
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