Badminton anyone?

Thought I'd bring my gear to the club I play at. So when I wasn't playing I'd sit out for a few minutes and take pictures. First time shooting badminton and first time shooting in that gym.

Settings used were SS: 1/400 f/2.8 ISO: 3200 and I still needed to bump the exposure up a full stop in lightroom. Thought they turned out okay but I really didn't know where to stand. I ended up sitting in the next court over under the net.

let me know what you think and what you would change.

1.

Haha! Reminds me of something my friend said once. We're both pretty big guys, him being 6'4, around 280 and looks like a bear, me being 6'6 and 260. This guy at a bar is talking to us and says "You guys are huge! Do you play football?" Without even a pause my friend comes back to say "No we're actually professinal badminton players!" The confusion on the dudes face for about 2 seconds was priceless.

nice intensity

Nice shots Paxonator! So the 1st guy was left-handed eh. I love the sports. Used to be a good player myself (still not too terrible now :lol.

These are pretty well done. Nice facial expressions and pictures look clean. No action shots though? I personally love taking and seeing action shots such as jump smashes, dives, etc.. There are not many badminton players or baddy photogs in this forum, so I'd like to share my post from last year just to show you the type of shots I personally enjoy.

https://photography-on-the.net …68856&highlight​=badminton

Dr.D wrote in post #13878659
Haha! Reminds me of something my friend said once. We're both pretty big guys, him being 6'4, around 280 and looks like a bear, me being 6'6 and 260. This guy at a bar is talking to us and says "You guys are huge! Do you play football?" Without even a pause my friend comes back to say "No we're actually professinal badminton players!" The confusion on the dudes face for about 2 seconds was priceless.

Haha awesome!

rick_reno wrote in post #13878871
nice intensity

Thanks Rick.

cfcRebel wrote in post #13878996
Nice shots Paxonator! So the 1st guy was left-handed eh. I love the sports. Used to be a good player myself (still not too terrible now :lol.

He's a pretty good lefty too! Yeah I really enjoy the sport.

joonrhee wrote in post #13879043
These are pretty well done. Nice facial expressions and pictures look clean. No action shots though? I personally love taking and seeing action shots such as jump smashes, dives, etc.. There are not many badminton players or baddy photogs in this forum, so I'd like to share my post from last year just to show you the type of shots I personally enjoy.

https://photography-on-the.net …68856&highlight​=badminton

Yeah I really only took photos for about 10-15 minutes total. Just whatever I had time to between matches. I wanted some smashes but I couldn't seem to get the intensity from where I was. I'm 5'6 and am too short to shoot over the net from the sides. I'll try to get some from your angle next time.

You have some good action shots there!

Thanks for your comment.

Not bad. Try the 85/1.8 - that would help a lot by being able to go to f2.2. You also get the USM. 70-200/f2.8 is more flexible if you have better lighting in the hall.

The next thing to change is playing with feather shuttles instead of plastic ones!

For a position, try sitting at the end corner of the court and facing the opposite end. Shoot throughout the net on a contrasty T shirt or a peripheral focus point on the legs.

I find that for good shots, certain positions give you a good shot on one type of movement and then you have to move to a different position for a different shot. I guess that must be pretty true of all other types of photography though.

Great shots. Nobody seems to be looking at the shuttlecock, though.

glipski wrote in post #13895296
Great shots. Nobody seems to be looking at the shuttlecock, though.

I recently shot a Yonex event and found the same thing - in a lot of the shots, especially where the shuttle was just making or had just made contact with the racquet, the players were often looking away. I assumed they were looking at where they wanted the shuttle to go in the same way a hockey player looks at his aiming point and not the puck itself when taking a shot. Maybe someone a lot more familiar with the sport than me could confirm or deny that assumption.

I will say that it's an extremely tough sport to shoot and the crappy lighting and limited/tight spaces in some indoor venues makes it all that much harder.

Joonrhee has some nice shots in his gallery and Paxonator did well for his first effort.

Thanks of your comments, I have some ideas for what I will try out next time to get some more interesting shots.

As for looking at the shuttle I'm not really sure how long I look at it before I hit it. The only time I can for sure say you are looking at it the whole time would be when you're at the net after a drop shot. And you are just trying to barely get it back over the net.