I was at the ATP masters tournament at Indian Wells and got to shoot some players in action. I am shooting tennis for the first time with this set up and I can see what I need to improve on. I hope you enjoy the series and as usual your comments are appreciated.If you are in to tennis then you know who the players are and if you don't, please ask me.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Thank you for looking.
Harish

[slowpez]

You managed to get some great action shots to show us Harish. The one with the two little boys is really cute. They seem so absorbed and are almost a mirror image of each other.

[ll_coffee_lP]

#6 is a standout. Lots of great action shots for sure, but most (excluding 5,6) are slightly miss focused.

c[_]

[Harish Hegde]

#6 is a standout. Lots of great action shots for sure, but most (excluding 5,6) are slightly miss focused.

c[_]

Yes. I noticed that too and I was hoping I was wrong.
I wonder why. All these were shot hand held with focus confirmed but afterwards I found the focus was off especially if the subject was moving. I wonder if I should have turned the SR off at higher shutter speeds.
Any suggestions?
Harish

[ll_coffee_lP]

Assuming that you shot in AF-C mode (I didn't check your exif data), versus AF-S - because of the constant motion, I can conclude one of a couple things:
- The particular lens you were using rear focuses and you happened to get lucky a couple of times (unlikely).
- You were using a side focus pt versus a cross-type focus pt in the centre of your frame. Side focus pts aren't nearly as accurate (unlikely).
- Your focus affirmation (i.e. little red box) is actually misaligned slightly. This is quite common actually, as I had in 2x's K10D and 2x's K-7's. In all my cameras I had to shoot using the bottom of the red box versus the centre. (possibly)
- You were aiming for the players heads/upper torso to focus and caught the backgrounds instead (likely). I think this is your culprit because the upper part of the images are what is in sharp focus each time.

Shooting the players in motion at centre of mass at f/5.6 is going to yield sharp body width results at this distance and very high shutter speeds in this kind of light.

Hope this helps.

c[_]

[Harish Hegde]

You were aiming for the players heads/upper torso to focus and caught the backgrounds instead (likely). I think this is your culprit because the upper part of the images are what is in sharp focus each time.



Thanks for response. I think that was the problem especially with the players moving towards me.
Next time I will shoot from the side lines.

Harish

[RonakG]

Great shots. I love #6.

[andre-mz5]

For a first time shooting tennis you got a nice serie, but they are not super.
You want the player & action to be sharp and standing out from the background. This means you have to shoot wide open or as wide as is required to get sharp results from your lens. I think the DA*200 will already give sharp results at F2.8, but may get the best results at F4-F5.6. You will then also easily see where your focus point has been in the shot. As far as I see your pictures most of the time focus on something in the background (linesman).
For tennis you also want to freeze the action using a very short shutterspeed, preferably 1/750-1/1500. You can see motionblur in #10, 1/400 is too slow.
For sports I therfor often use TAv since I can select both shutterspeed and aperture. With the K5 you don't have to worry too much about high ISO noise and given the sunny circumstances you had that should be no problem at all.
You already got info about AF. You could try AF-C and single focus point and look at the results.

Hope this helps to get even better shots next time.
Here some tennis shots I took last year.
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/104875-sports-tennis-uni...smalen-nl.html

[Tommy]

Great shots with very nice colors! What a simply super day!

/Tommy

[Harish Hegde]

For a first time shooting tennis you got a nice serie, but they are not super.
You want the player & action to be sharp and standing out from the background. This means you have to shoot wide open or as wide as is required to get sharp results from your lens. I think the DA*200 will already give sharp results at F2.8, but may get the best results at F4-F5.6. You will then also easily see where your focus point has been in the shot. As far as I see your pictures most of the time focus on something in the background (linesman).
For tennis you also want to freeze the action using a very short shutterspeed, preferably 1/750-1/1500. You can see motionblur in #10, 1/400 is too slow.
For sports I therfor often use TAv since I can select both shutterspeed and aperture. With the K5 you don't have to worry too much about high ISO noise and given the sunny circumstances you had that should be no problem at all.
You already got info about AF. You could try AF-C and single focus point and look at the results.

Hope this helps to get even better shots next time.
Here some tennis shots I took last year.
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/104875-sports-tennis-uni...smalen-nl.html

I was shooting at F8 in Matrix mode for DOF and I can see how that was a mistake.
Well, next time I will try your advice.
Thanks much.
Harish