Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

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anakha
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p.1 #1 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

I went to the Australian Open tennis yesterday in Melbourne and rented a Canon 200mm F2.0 lens for the day - oh what a gorgeous lens!!! $7K to buy, but only $105 to rent for a day :-)

Unless you have a press pass, you can't take a lens with a focal length exceeding 200mm into the tournament - so I had to leave my safari lens at home :-( Whilst I had no problems getting the lens into the grounds, I had a tournament manager come to check whether the 200mm F2 lens was compliant whilst I was taking photos of Jelena Jankovic's match. I had my 2x III TC attached, which the rules don't prohibit (yet).

The speed of focus and the separation provided by the F2.0 is divine. The challenge with the tennis was timing the shutter to capture the ball in the shot with the player. I tried machine gunning at first, but 6 frames per second is not fast enough to capture the serves from mid-court. The pros were machine-gunning their 1Dx's at 12fps in front of me quite a few times.

I took 1074 shots during the day - here is a selection of the best ones. I only had a grounds pass, so didn't get to take shots on centre court. If I can get a press pass for next year, I'll try to get into the centre courts.

Suggestions for improvements are appreciated.

I only have lightroom on my laptop, so haven't been able to as fully sharpen these images as much as I'd like.

Anakha

2013 © anakha

Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 200 mm f/2.0 1/2000 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 200 mm f/2.2 1/2000 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

Flipkens
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/2000 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

Flipkens victorious
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 280 mm f/2.8 1/3200 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

Jan 17, 2013 at 10:32 AM

anakha
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p.1 #2 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

next two matches on court 6:

2013 © anakha

Brian Baker of the USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 280 mm f/2.8 1/1600 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

Baker tore his meniscus and had to retire injured (whilst he was ahead)
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 280 mm f/2.8 1/2000 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

Ekaterina Makarova of Russia
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 280 mm f/2.8 1/1000 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

Stephanie Foretz-Gacon of France
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 280 mm f/3.2 1/640 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

Jan 17, 2013 at 10:37 AM

anakha
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p.1 #3 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Two more from Court Six, then I switched to Show Court Two to see a former world #1 play.

2013 © anakha

#9
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 280 mm f/3.2 1/1250 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

#10
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 280 mm f/3.2 1/1600 sec 100 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

#11 - Jelena Jankovic of Serbia (former world No.1)
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/4000 sec 200 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

#12
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/4000 sec 200 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

#13
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/3200 sec 200 ISO 0.0 EV

Jan 17, 2013 at 10:41 AM

anakha
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p.1 #4 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

more from Show Court 2:

2013 © anakha

#14
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/3200 sec 200 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

#16
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/2500 sec 200 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

Jankovic's relief at her victory (she had lost the first set and nearly lost the second)
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/2500 sec 200 ISO 0.0 EV

2013 © anakha

Jankovic thanks the crowd - many Serbian fans in the crowd
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/2500 sec 200 ISO 0.0 EV

Jan 17, 2013 at 10:44 AM

anakha
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p.1 #5 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

I only saw the first few games of the last match on Show Court 2 as I had to leave for dinner

2013 © anakha

Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia - 8th seed
Canon EOS 5D Mark III 400 mm f/4.0 1/2500 sec 400 ISO 0.0 EV

Jan 17, 2013 at 10:47 AM

anakha
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p.1 #6 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

almost 200 views and no comments or suggestions?

This was my first time at the tennis with a DSLR.

Anakha

Jan 20, 2013 at 10:01 AM

tpilot
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p.1 #7 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Excellent shots Anakha, that lens really did a fine job and of course you... my fav it Janko

Jan 20, 2013 at 10:15 AM

anakha
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p.1 #8 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Thanks tpilot - did you like the shot of Janko because of how it was taken, or because you are a fan of his?

Anakha

Jan 20, 2013 at 11:20 AM

CW100
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p.1 #9 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

anakha wrote:
almost 200 views and no comments or suggestions?

This was my first time at the tennis with a DSLR.

Anakha

excellent first time pics - the usual (Serena, Federer) are playing strong

Jan 21, 2013 at 01:47 PM

anakha
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p.1 #10 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Thanks CW100 - it was an enjoyable day. I've got some more tennis photos taken 48 hrs later, which I may post once I get a chance to post-process them.

Anakha

CW100 wrote:
anakha wrote:
almost 200 views and no comments or suggestions?

This was my first time at the tennis with a DSLR.

Anakha

excellent first time pics - the usual (Serena, Federer) are playing strong

Jan 21, 2013 at 10:14 PM

kevin s
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p.1 #11 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

despite you lamenting your camera's frame rate, i think #'s 9 - 11 show remarkable timing. it seems you have a feel for the sport. anyway, i think you have a nice set of pictures and i enjoyed looking at them, however, the jankovic sequence represented a lot of blue (maybe too much for my taste) but there's really nothing you could do about that! thanks for posting.

Jan 22, 2013 at 03:21 PM

anakha
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p.1 #12 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Thanks Kevin S,

The court colours for the Australian Open are all blue.

The earlier shots were taken at ground level on outside courts whilst the Jankovic match shots were taken from a grandstand well above the player's eye level. Until I can get a media pass, I can't get any closer to the players' eye levels in the bigger tennis matches :-( I guess I could de-saturate the blue background a bit.

As I said earlier, shooting at 6fps was not effective in timing shots to frame the tennis ball on the player's racquet - taking single shots and timing through feel worked better. By the end of the day, I was getting a strike rate of over 50% with the ball in the frame of the racquet and maybe 20% with the ball compressed on the strings.

Anakha

kevin s wrote:
despite you lamenting your camera's frame rate, i think #'s 9 - 11 show remarkable timing. it seems you have a feel for the sport. anyway, i think you have a nice set of pictures and i enjoyed looking at them, however, the jankovic sequence represented a lot of blue (maybe too much for my taste) but there's really nothing you could do about that! thanks for posting.

Jan 22, 2013 at 10:17 PM

Shoota
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p.1 #13 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Nice set of shots. Very nice color quality and you got several with ball on strings! I've rented Canon lenses to shoot at Indian Wells. I've come to the conclusion that 200mm is adequate if you can get close to the court. 300mm is longer than I need. It's nice that the Oz Open lets you bring in that lens. Good idea to have an extender with you. One general comment is that some of these shots could use cropping. Does Lightroom do that? The shot of Jankovic serving is a good example. I would crop out the crowd at the top of the picture, plus some off the bottom and both sides. $105 for a day seems steep for that lens. Maybe you should shop around? Here in Los Angeles, a Canon 200mm, f1.8L USM goes for $75, and a 200mm F2.8 II USM goes for $25.

Jan 24, 2013 at 12:40 AM

anakha
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p.1 #14 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Thanks Shoota.

I could have cropped some of these photos in Lightroom - some of the next series I will post are cropped.

Sadly, lens rental prices in Australia are significantly higher than what is charged to rent the same lens in the USofA. Whilst prices have come down somewhat as the number of lens rental businesses has increased over the last few years, we don't have volume of demand to justify even lower prices. For example, the store from which I rented the 200mm F2 - I was the only person to rent it during the first week of the Australian Open!

Anakha

Shoota wrote:
Nice set of shots. Very nice color quality and you got several with ball on strings! I've rented Canon lenses to shoot at Indian Wells. I've come to the conclusion that 200mm is adequate if you can get close to the court. 300mm is longer than I need. It's nice that the Oz Open lets you bring in that lens. Good idea to have an extender with you. One general comment is that some of these shots could use cropping. Does Lightroom do that? The shot of Jankovic serving is a good example. I would crop out the crowd at the top of the picture, plus some off the bottom and both sides. $105 for a day seems steep for that lens. Maybe you should shop around? Here in Los Angeles, a Canon 200mm, f1.8L USM goes for $75, and a 200mm F2.8 II USM goes for $25.

Jan 24, 2013 at 05:11 AM

sozypozy
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p.1 #15 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

it was $105 well spent! you've taken some amazing shots

Jan 24, 2013 at 02:57 PM

anakha
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p.1 #16 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Thanks Sozypozy!

I plan to rent the lens again next year - hopefully having gained a press accreditation for the event!

Anakha

sozypozy wrote:
it was $105 well spent! you've taken some amazing shots

Jan 31, 2013 at 12:31 AM

Photocache
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p.1 #17 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Great shots!!

Really like #3 (Flipkens), #9 and #11.

Great intensity and drama.

Thanks.

Ronny

Feb 01, 2013 at 01:59 AM

anakha
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p.1 #18 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Thanks Ronny :-)

Photocache wrote:
Great shots!!

Really like #3 (Flipkens), #9 and #11.

Great intensity and drama.

Thanks.

Ronny

Feb 01, 2013 at 09:21 AM

johnmueller
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p.1 #19 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

I went to the Oz Open back in 2010 and for whatever dumb reason brought my 80-400 lens instead of my 70-200 and got stopped at the gate for the same thing. I tried to get a media pass, but couldn't BS them well enough to get one. Great shots. I could see why they stopped you with that huge lens, but good on ya for proving your case.

Feb 05, 2013 at 05:25 PM

anakha
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p.1 #20 · Australian Open Tennis 2013 - Round Two Day 1

Thanks JohnMueller - it always pays to read the terms and conditions of entry for an event very carefully ;-) Nowadays, they require media passes to be applied for months in advance on the letterhead of the news agency/newspaper.

Anakha

johnmueller wrote:
I went to the Oz Open back in 2010 and for whatever dumb reason brought my 80-400 lens instead of my 70-200 and got stopped at the gate for the same thing. I tried to get a media pass, but couldn't BS them well enough to get one. Great shots. I could see why they stopped you with that huge lens, but good on ya for proving your case.

Feb 06, 2013 at 09:16 PM

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