Tennis

[Viper]

Righty-ho lads.

1) just watching some wimbledon from previous years, and i have not seen one small lens on the SLRs. WHY?? surely they dont need the big zoom, as they all sit right at the front..

so what else in in these big lenses that they need for tennis?

im going to wimbledon tomorrow, and i have 3 lenses; 1x 18-55 (samsung). 1x 50-200 (samsung) and 1x 70-300 with macro (tamron)

which one of those would be best suited to tennis pictures, and can you give me any tips as to how to get great shots

cheers, Tom

[DaveG]

Depending on where you are sat you could get away with the 18-55, but if you're up the back you might need the 70-300.

Also if I'm sat where the line judges are behind the players, what am I going to get a photo of? A tennis players arse. They'll need some focal length to shoot the length of the court plus a bit at more to get the player in. Obviously if the photogs are shooting from the side of the baseline they'll have a bit of scope. Short lens as player nearest them serves or plays from the base line, medium zoom/prime to get the opponent playing.

A tennis court is 78ft long end to end, 36ft wide and about 86ft across the diagonal - add in some space either end and you'll need a bit more length than you may think.

There's nothing else in the lenses except a lot of glass. Many of the lenses seen at sports events are so big because they are A long - lots of magnification and B fast - meaning they have large apertures to let in lots of light so you can use really fast shutter speeds to capture the action without blurring it.

Tennis is quite a fast moving sport so you'll need a fast shutter speed - possible more than 1/500s to stop the motion. If your camera has a Sports or Action program, use that to begin with. Most action programs on modern DSLRs default to a high-ish ISO, a very fast shutter and all will open the aperture wide open on the lens to let as much light in as possible to gain correct exposure for the fast shutter speed.

If I was shooting tennis I'd start on something like Tv (shutter priority mode) with a value of 1/1000s and go from there. If my camera told me I needed more light I'd open up the aperture to f2.8 (all my lenses are this 'fast') and see what ISO I needed to dial in to get 1/1000s @ f2.8.

[Viper]

cheers! :d

how does ur camera tell you if you need more light? lol

also, are there any lenses you would suggest i get to use to take snaps like all you pros have been doing at a race track?

thanx, Tom

[DaveG]

When I look through the viewfinder I see this - sometimes without a plane, which looks like an ATR 42 Turboprop to me.



Red squares are focal points.

The numbers mean the following:

500 = Shutter Speed

8.0 = Aperture Value

Green Dot an 9 = How many shots I have left in my buffer

See there's a scale in the middle? With -2...-2....0...+1...+2

There's a pointer underneath, if it points to a minus value, decrease shutter, increase aperter or up your ISO. If it points to a plus value, faster shutter, smaller aperture, or lower the ISO.

[Viper]

cheers!! thats great help :d i had been looking at that scale on mine today and was about to have a look in the instruction manual! lol

would rep you, but i need to spread ze luurrve

[DaveG]

Ok, next time I'll not bother *sob*

hahaha

or tell you to RTFM.