Tennis photograph's

Hi all,

This was by far the hardest thing I have ever had the dis-pleasure of photographing! The location was awful, lighting was awful and it was sooo cold inside the courts! Each photo has had about 45 mins spent on it getting rid of rips in the background and general clutter. It's taken me almost 4 weeks to complete the processing for the entire series (200 photos plus), they better like them.

I'd love to know what you peeps thought...

1

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I read cleanphoto instead of deanphoto.

That is the first thing that came to mind when I saw them.

Very nice.

Photos with ball on them are cool. Sure it wouldn't hurt if you could use faster time to avoid bluring racket, but considering light conditions (at least what I see from photos), it's great.
But I would exclude photos without ball. For tennis, pretty much as for any other ball sport, ball is part of game, and should be there. If not, it just tells you missed right moment
But in general, I really like them.

primoz wrote in post #5180277
Photos with ball on them are cool. Sure it wouldn't hurt if you could use faster time to avoid bluring racket, but considering light conditions (at least what I see from photos), it's great.
But I would exclude photos without ball. For tennis, pretty much as for any other ball sport, ball is part of game, and should be there. If not, it just tells you missed right moment
But in general, I really like them.

Totally disagree about the ball having to be in the shot. Like you said it would have been nicer to have no motion blur but I could only sync up to 1/250th.

I've just noticed there are no crops in the above pics, here's a tighter crop...

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so from the sync comment I'm assuming you were flashing. Would you mind sharing what you used and how you went about using it? lighting that is

They look great, my favorite would have to be the last one. All of them are truly dramatic and fantastic captures.

actually, as discussed here many times, your shutter had little to do with the freezing action since most of your lighting was done through strobing. As long as you have enough stops of lighing above ambient that is... and there seems to be very little ambient in these.

I agree to an extent about the need of a ball or lack there of - but the shot has to say something about the event for the ball to be missing and still work. A great jubilation shot, or something with strong emotion works with out the ball. It's all about the shot having context. But generally, yes, action shots are generally always stronger witht the ball in it.

Seems to be a neat concept.... very interesting.

Dean,

These are great shots. They show finesse, skill and technique. Care to share your setup? Thanks!

I think they look cool. Would like to see a larger version of the last one.

I will have to try that sort of shoot sometime, less the cold part.

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www.proTennisPhotos.co​m

Your hard work certainly paid off! These are great shots, but I must agree with Primoz. There are instances where the action tennis shots without the ball would work, but not in "typical" forehand, backhand, swing shots. The shots without the ball usually work when other elements in the image, such as human emotion or dramatic expression or even an unusual angle or composition, are present. #2 and #6, for example, don't do anything for me. On the other hand, #1 is fantastic. So are #3, #5 and #8 if cropped tighter. I love your lighting....

Croasdail wrote in post #5180884
actually, as discussed here many times, your shutter had little to do with the freezing action since most of your lighting was done through strobing. As long as you have enough stops of lighing above ambient that is... and there seems to be very little ambient in these.

Sorry, that's my ill informed error, Primorz had also mentioned the faster speed to stop motion blur. So what you're saying is that; although my flashes sync at a speed of 1/1000, that still isn't fast enough due to the lack of ambient or, is that I needed another flash in most shots?

As for the whole 'ball in the shot' argument..The coach wanted to see technique in the photos, this meant shooting the setup, hit and follow through, and also shooting wide to see stance etc. I much prefer the shots with balls in and tight crops), but there is something about a player being 2ft off the ground after hitting the ball.

There was only this one wall to shoot against that was a clean background, we had to keep rotating the players and get them to play accross the court, which was a royal pain in the butt!!

All the shots were (apart from the outdoors) were shot at ISO160, F2.8 and 1/250. The 2 flashes were set to max and moved around depending on the shot that they were shooting (forehand/backhand/ser​ver etc).

Thanks for the feedback!

Actually, if your flash duration is 1/1000 - yeah that could be too slow for a fast moving ball. It is fast enough to freeze most motion by a person, but a ball moving at a relatively fast velocity would still blur. In American baseball, to get a pitcher ball frozen from certain angles you need 1/2000-1/4000 depending on the pitcher. Finger blur like you have is pretty common below 1/800, so I am a bit surprised you were still getting getting it if your flash heads truly do 1/1000.

Getting real numbers on flash duration is a tough one. When they quote a number, ofter is is the duration the flash is a peak output. But most strobes intenseify, then reduce as their capacitors discharge. It isn't a pure on-then off. Rather they intensify and dim. It is how quickly they do that which impacts "true" flash duration. For example, your flash heads my be at peak for 1/1000th - but they also may be at 80% of that intensity for 1/640th... hence giving some ghosting on fast moving objects. Particularly for things like a yellow tennis ball that is more luminous, and hence starts to show up at much lower light levels. The light usually falls off much faster than it builds. That is why many use Alien Bees AB800s because they illuminate and discharge very fast. It's all a giant pain in the .... you know what... when you get down to it.

Hope this made some sense. I still haven't seen any real numbers for Canon, Nikon or Sigma flashes.... it would be really interesting to see.

Croasdail wrote in post #5186657
Actually, if your flash duration is 1/1000 - yeah that could be too slow for a fast moving ball. It is fast enough to freeze most motion by a person, but a ball moving at a relatively fast velocity would still blur. In American baseball, to get a pitcher ball frozen from certain angles you need 1/2000-1/4000 depending on the pitcher. Finger blur like you have is pretty common below 1/800, so I am a bit surprised you were still getting getting it if your flash heads truly do 1/1000.

Getting real numbers on flash duration is a tough one. When they quote a number, ofter is is the duration the flash is a peak output. But most strobes intenseify, then reduce as their capacitors discharge. It isn't a pure on-then off. Rather they intensify and dim. It is how quickly they do that which impacts "true" flash duration. For example, your flash heads my be at peak for 1/1000th - but they also may be at 80% of that intensity for 1/640th... hence giving some ghosting on fast moving objects. Particularly for things like a yellow tennis ball that is more luminous, and hence starts to show up at much lower light levels. The light usually falls off much faster than it builds. That is why many use Alien Bees AB800s because they illuminate and discharge very fast. It's all a giant pain in the .... you know what... when you get down to it.

Hope this made some sense. I still haven't seen any real numbers for Canon, Nikon or Sigma flashes.... it would be really interesting to see.

Thanks for that mark, you certainly know your stuff and it made sense to me!

I'm using some old Vivitar 285's, both with large lead batteries. I'm hoping to buy some proper strobes in the near future but current finances are a tad low

I probaly would have straightened the images - IMHO that was the first thing that I noticed.

Look good to me

Dave

Good looking stuff dean. I am not aloud to use strobes when I shoot tennis indoors. So, I am waiting for it to move outside. before I pick it up again.