Tennis Anyone?

[T-Roc]

Took this picture at our District Championships..... she went on to win First Place with her partner. Used a D-Reb 300 with a 75-300 zoom.

[Cadwell]

Nicely stopped action, but it's a pity you lost her feet...

[DwightMcCann]

I've shot a bit of tennis. The way you have her centered suggests that the composition was needed for autofocus. It would have been better with complete feet and a bit of the space cropped off the right side. Great work on the ball location and capturing her "eye on the ball". You only got one picture?

[T-Roc]

I've shot a bit of tennis. The way you have her centered suggests that the composition was needed for autofocus. It would have been better with complete feet and a bit of the space cropped off the right side. Great work on the ball location and capturing her "eye on the ball". You only got one picture?

Thanks for the input.... it really helps! :) You are right about the autofocus and I never even considered the feet. That's what's helping me is when I get good criticisim. I've included the before (serving) and after (follow-thru). I didn't think they were as good as the middle shot.

[T-Roc]

Nicely stopped action, but it's a pity you lost her feet...

You're right.... I didn't even consider the feet until you mentioned it. :( It gives me something to work on, I appreciate your input.

The picture below has her feet but I didn't like the background. How could I have made this a better shot?

[melita]

The way you have her centered suggests that the composition was needed for autofocus. It would have been better with... a bit of the space cropped off the right side.

The other thing you might want to consider is using an off-centre focussing point. It's always best to have your subject 'looking' into more space than there is behind them. That's not just true for people but also cars, boats, etc...

You may be able to get rid of the background by using a large aperture and a long focal length lens. That should blur it but it depends on a number of factors and won't always be possible.

[grego]

You need to open up that aperture as wide as possible. The backgrounds are worthless to have in there so if you can eliminate them, that's great. It'll make the players stand out more.

[Little Fish]

I shoot a fair amount of sports photos for a local college. I always take a little too much and then crop to the photo that I want and this is a good example of why. I can always crop out wasted space but I can't add in feet that aren't in the original photo. I think I would have cropped your original photo to something like this:


http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a38/F_L_E/Misc%20Photos/CopyofIMG_3796.jpg (http://photobucket.com/albums/a38/F_L_E/Misc%20Photos/?)

[Little Fish]

Well I screwed up and deleted the cropped photo. I would crop it so the top of the photo is just above the horizonal bar on the back fence and I would crop the right side of the photo to just inside the vertical post on the right. With the subject taking up more of the frame, I think it will eliminate some of the background distraction.

Frank.