I had an assignment to get some pictures of two players for a Men's tennis preview today. I had to quickly go after school and this is what I got. Only had a few minutes to get them, so they aren't great but they will do. K100D and Sigma 70-200mm f2.8. ISO 200. Av mode @ f4. Very little PP if any was applied to these. They came out of the camera looking pretty nice.

I'm really not happy with the backgrounds, but there isn't much I could do.










Let me know what you guys think!

Cheers,

Tyler

[Gooshin]

i think those guys are going to confront you in the halls , those are funny pictures.

i congratulate you on eliminating motion blur, atleast for the players faces/bodies.

how is the sigma btw, are you loving it?

[bluespearbone]

Would have been nice to see a few with some motion blur in there, but then that probably would have left the backgrounds more noticeable. Good shots

[Tyler]

i think those guys are going to confront you in the halls , those are funny pictures.

i congratulate you on eliminating motion blur... there are alot of people out there that think blurry sports shots are "okay".

haha, they are actually gonna stop by the newspaper room tomorrow during lunch to check them out and help pick out the one they would like run.

Thanks, it was fairly easy to have not much blur because of how bright it was outside. I got some as you can see, but not too bad. I guess I could've bumped up to iso400....I do whatever I can most of the time to get my shots as sharp as I can. Whether that means shooting at ISO3200 a stop under and pushing it in post to a theoretical ISO6400 or whatnot. I'd rather have a grainy, sharp image, then a clean and blurry image. Noise isn't that big of an issue, especially in the paper which we affectionately call "glorified toilet paper". :P

edit- Gooshin, I absolutely lovelovelovelovelove the sigma. It has a slightfront focusing issue, but only really wide open and with the K20D I will be able to fix that myself...

[spyglass]

Hey Tyler,

Great to see you take on a challenging shoot. Sport shots can be challenging. Sports deals with motion which can be difficult to include in the picture when you also want to have elements of sharpness and clarity.
With the fence being so close behind the subject you become quite limited when trying to separate the background and the subject. One trick you can do is to capture shots of the players as they are on the move, pan the camera to follow the athlete. This will allow you to easily keep the athlete in focus and sharp while blurring and softening the background. Use the slowest shutter speed you can. (you should be able to get the athlete frozen while panning with 1/60 to 1/90 sec shutter speed). You see this technique used for capturing racing photos (cars, bikes, horses, etc). Also set the camera to burst mode (sooner or later you will get a shot where the athlete has a reasonable expression). If you are doing a year book spread set up the shot (fake setup) Tell the athlete that you want a kill or be killed look. Have some one toss the ball over the net so the athlete knows where and when his part will be required. Then he can time his role, run across the court to pouch on an easy ball. He will not have a contorted face and will look more like a pro. It will also allow you unrestricted positioning for you on your side of the court (try the center line for tenis). For real game situations use burst mode and take a lot of photos (when I shoot my sons field lacrosse games I generally fire off 200 shots min per game (and find 4 or 5 shots that I am happy with, the rest range from crap to ok).

Good start, don't give up, you will get better with each outing.

[roentarre]

Your first shot is really a great capture. Got the moment in time and the image is very clear in deed.

[egordon99]

I'm really not happy with the backgrounds, but there isn't much I could do.

Tell the players to move farther away from the fence

Great shots! I haven't really done much sports shooting as I'm not a sports fan, but anyway....

[Peter Zack]

Would have been nice to see a few with some motion blur in there, but then that probably would have left the backgrounds more noticeable. Good shots

I would agree with "Blues" that you should have some shots with motion blurr. That isn't to say the shots should be fuzzy. But a good shot with the player looking sharp but the racket and ball clearly showing blurred movement can depict action much more than all the shots looking like frozen statues. Mix it up a bit. Shoot at slower shutter speeds or try a trailing curtain flash effect.

These are good and they will be happy with the results. It's a great lens and almost as nice as a prime.

[vievetrick]

I tell you one thing that impressed me is that you have the players in focus. I mean I can see me staning there and the camera wanting to focus on the fence not the players. Nice work.

[kent vinyard]

Tyler,
Looks like you did a really good job on these. How many shots did it take to get these?
Like some have suggested, you might slow the shutter speed down a little to get just a touch of motion blur, but they are still very good. I think number 1, 6, & 7 are the best in the series. I have the Sigma 70-200 2.8 also and it sure seems like it focuses faster than my Pentax 50-135 2.8 lens.

[Tyler]

Your first shot is really a great capture. Got the moment in time and the image is very clear in deed.

Thanks! I always appreciate comments from you!

Tell the players to move farther away from the fence

Great shots! I haven't really done much sports shooting as I'm not a sports fan, but anyway....

Thanks!!

I would agree with "Blues" that you should have some shots with motion blurr. That isn't to say the shots should be fuzzy. But a good shot with the player looking sharp but the racket and ball clearly showing blurred movement can depict action much more than all the shots looking like frozen statues. Mix it up a bit. Shoot at slower shutter speeds or try a trailing curtain flash effect.

These are good and they will be happy with the results. It's a great lens and almost as nice as a prime.

I will try to get some blur on the racket next time I shoot tennis. Thanks for the suggestion! And your right about the Sigma. Awesome lens.

I tell you one thing that impressed me is that you have the players in focus. I mean I can see me staning there and the camera wanting to focus on the fence not the players. Nice work.

hhah, thanks for the laugh. The AF in my K100D did a good job this time. A lot of light helps

Tyler,
Looks like you did a really good job on these. How many shots did it take to get these?
Like some have suggested, you might slow the shutter speed down a little to get just a touch of motion blur, but they are still very good. I think number 1, 6, & 7 are the best in the series. I have the Sigma 70-200 2.8 also and it sure seems like it focuses faster than my Pentax 50-135 2.8 lens.

I think I only took around 20-30 shots and narrowed it down to these for the web. I only had about 1 or 2 that were OFF or not exposed correctly. The rest turned out nicely. I haven't used the 50-135, so I can't compare, but the Sigma really does focus really fast.