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.
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:
excellent first time pics - the usual (Serena, Federer) are playing strong
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.
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.
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.
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. ...Show more →
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.
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.
