My Wimbledon shots

We got very lucky and managed to get centre court tickets for Monday and Tuesday this week and caught some fantastic matches including the use of the roof over centre court for the first time in a competitive match and Murray's epic 5 set win over Wawrinka.

Only snag on Monday was that we were seating in the penultimate row of the entire court. Here's a view from our seats shot at 33mm to give you an idea:

http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …80127266_c11065​5604_o.jpg

This meant having to shoot at full zoom and as the light dimmed [despite the artificial lights] I had to ramp up the ISO to 1600 [max on my 450D] despite shooting wide open and my shots were still a 1/3 to 1/2 underexposed to maintain a highish shutter speed. As a result quite a few shots were noisier/softer [particularly when I dragged the 75-300 III out] than I would have liked, but you've got to deal with what you've got.

Here's some shots from Monday's action then:

Federer serves

Tuesday was better from a photography standpoint, we got out and about on some of the other courts closer to the action and our centre court seats were about half the distance to the court that they were on Monday.

Martina Navratilova

http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …268901_138aa5de​52.jpg?v=0

Mansour Bahrami

Superb shots given your location in the stadium and conditions. Well done.

Please be aware that there's a limit of 8 shots that can be displayed per thread. For th rest of the shots, you can supply links, or better yet, a link to your gallery.

I like this set (no pun intended..)

Shame about the noise but on the plus side they do look 'reportage.'

My personal favourite from the first set is the last one. This sums up the position after any long match one competitor packing up to go home, the other starting to think about what happens next...

Thanks guys! Yeah, I like "the moment" captured in that Murray shot; Wawrinka's packing his bags whilst Murray looks very thoughtful and the media are ready to pounce.

Sorry about the pics Pete, I forgot the limit! Here's a link to the full set on my flickr anyway for those who might be interested - http://www.flickr.com …0/sets/72157620​828936082/

Did you get your tickets for Monday from ticketmaster, i heard that the ones they sell are akways near the back.

I've tried for 2 years in the ballot and nothing as yet. Hopefully it will be 3rd time lucky

The photos look great considering the difficulties you had.

agree with all. Not much you can do with the circumstances you had....but I would say that you have a couple keepers in there! I was watching this all day. Wear a 3' pink hat and I will see if I can see you on Sunday!

Thanks guys.

Yeah, ticketmaster to the rescue, cruddy seats but better to be there than not there! We got tickets through our club's allocation last year and managed to see Rafa on number 1 court but no luck with either public or BTA allocations this year.

Here's a couple of panoramas I stitched using Hugin of centre court and number 3 court:

IMAGE LINK: http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …85045243_3a4766​40b7_o.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …87990622_c7b1d3​2558_o.jpg

just curious if they allow to bring in any "pro" photo equipment ?

I guess that depends on your definition. There was a guy a couple of seats from me on court 18 with a 40D + 70-200 f/4 and I saw some people lugging monopods around and various non-entry level Nikons too. I took in a gripped 450D, 18-55IS, 75-300 and 70-210 plus blower etc and had no issues at all. Security were really interested in simply security, I'd doubt very much that they'd stop you getting in with a lens of the wrong colour.

Electric Shepherd wrote in post #8223263
Thanks guys.

Yeah, ticketmaster to the rescue, cruddy seats but better to be there than not there! We got tickets through our club's allocation last year and managed to see Rafa on number 1 court but no luck with either public or BTA allocations this year.

Here's a couple of panoramas I stitched using Hugin of centre court and number 3 court:

IMAGE LINK: http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …85045243_3a4766​40b7_o.jpg

IMAGE LINK: http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …87990622_c7b1d3​2558_o.jpg

Click for larger sizes.

First shot is cool!

Karver wrote in post #8223297
just curious if they allow to bring in any "pro" photo equipment ?

At the Australian Open, the only restriction is a maximum focal length of 200mm but we all know that's impossible with crop factors and extenders as well as some compacts having equivalent focal lengths of 400mm.

I went to Wimbledon myself last week, only got Court Number 2 tickets sadly, but managed to have a wander round and get these on one of the outside courts :-

the soderling shot is great. i like the line judge to the right.