Badminton Photography

The one over focal length rule is just a general rule of thumb that is published in numerous beginner photography books. Being a rule of thumb, it is only meant to serve as a rough guideline. Just as you can shoot at 200mm at 1/60s, I can sometimes brace myself shoot in the 28 - 50mm range with a shutter speed as low as 1/8s (but then this is on my IS lense, with built-in image stabilization). Exceptions are bound to exist.

As I have written earlier, I was already using an ISO setting of 1600. I guess they call it the ASA rating over in UK, but here in N.A., it's called the ISO rating. Getting a brighter lense is certainly an option, but I'll need to save up a bit of money before that can happen.

-Rick

 

hi ynexfan2003

infact i was not talking about the shutter speed i.e 1/250, 1/500 sort of thing. i was talking about the respoonce of the shutter that mean time between u press on it and it actually functioning. all camere are different! the F70 is a kindda "normal" responce. when u pick up a F5 and press on the shutter. feel to it, u will know what i was talking about. in other word, take badminton as an example. u can use both F70 and F5 to freeze a shuttlecock in your picture with a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec for example. if u check your pictures u will find that u can hardly find a shuttlecock in your picture by using the F70 coz the shutter responce is not fast enough. bird had already been hitted to the other side of the badminton court! but this kind of problem will never happen to the pro cameras such as F3 with MD4 motordrive, F4, F5, Canon New F1, and those top EOS(s). if still coundn't get the bird in your picture with them and i guess u should get more practicing on your brain your eyes and your fingers.
let's talk about quality of the lenes. u will find that there will be quite a big difference in leica lenes and nikon or canon lenes. especally in the shadow area. there will be more detail with leica lenes. but for the pix which u took with the nikon and canon lenes. it seems to be a bit "muddy" in the shadow area. of coz i mean comparing them under the same shutter speed, same aperture at the same situation.
for photography, i think the "content" with a better composition of your picture is much more important than other thing.
thats what i was trying to say in the previous post.
p.s (nowaday the canon eos 1 series is the best for sports photography! but it's no jokes. my old nikon f3 with md4 motordrive is still my key weapon for my sports assignment.)

regards

red00ecstrat

 

The hall must be very dim indeed if you can't get a decent pic. using ASA1600, 1/125 shutter speed, and an aperture size of f2.8; do the players wear night-goggles? What sort of lens are you using and why don't you use an external flash (the built-in flashes are kak) ?
I'm surprised you have this problem, as by your description you must be using something like a 80-200 telephoto lens w. max aperture size of f2.8; these lenses are not cheap. Most telephoto lenses in that range under £300 have a max fstop of 4.5 or maybe f3.6 if you can pick up a good deal on a cheapish lens like a Tokina.

You can shoot at 1/8sec. without a tripod? Can you send me a photograph so I can erect a shrine in your honour? I thought I was doing good in managing to get a decent picture occasionally at 1/30, having spent ten minutes arranging the shot and supporting the cam against wall etc.

 

red00ecstrat,
I see what you mean; that's why I said old cams aren't very good for continuous shooting in action photography - too much delay in the shutter response. I wouldn't dream of using my old Pentax K1000 for action photography for this reason, but it's very good when using slow shutter speeds and slow film like ASA 50 B&W or ASA 100 Superia Reala. Having said that, I suppose if you're an intelligent photographer and are familiar with the mechanics of your camera, you could probably anticipate the delay; but it wouldn't be worth all the ruined prints!

The problem I have with modern cameras is that most of the semi-automatic ones in my price range don't give enough control - e.g. double exposure and extended exposure. Some won't even let you override the size of aperture, which is annoying when you know that the light meter isn't taking into account something which a skilled photographer would. For example, the subject is between you and the source of light, and you want to overexpose by one stop or so to emphasise the details of the subject.

Composition is very important; I've seen a lot of pics taken by amateur photographers where the chosen subject is good, but the final image is poor because they have not considered the angle, amount/direction of light, and placement of subject (usually with amateurs, splat! in the middle of the pic.) carefully enough before taking the shot.

 

ynexfan2003:

you have no choice mate, when u are in an extreme situation. just switch to full manual.
one more thing. i remembered u was talking about the continuous shooting in previous post. my experience is that. even though u have a fast film killing machine and took a whole sequence of action. if u only need one best pix. more than 90%, u would probably pick the first frame of your sequence. coz u saw that moment happen right? the rest of the frames were just some "unknown shots" u can't really see what's happening that time because the mirror's going up and down. so don't worry too much on how many frames per second can handle, just concentrate on the best moment.

red00ecstrat

 

The slowest shutter speed on the manual SLR cam's I've been looking at - and not reissues of old cams under cheap manufacturers like Centon - is 1/30sec, and the lenses which come with them have a max aperture size of f3.5. Even if I just used my other cam for prolonged exposure etc., I'd need to buy a faster lens for the new camera. I'd like to buy the Canon f1.2, but I've no idea where to find it, and I'm sure it would be about £500. After searching for a replacement fixed lens (50mm) for my Pentax K, I finally found a Sigma f1.4, but the starting bid was £200+. I didn't think it was worth it, seeing that the same lens in f2 is only about £35. I guess it's all just supply in demand.

 

Hi Cheung,
I've done a search on the net, but couldn't find any retailers (mostly dead links in fact). A friend of mine got an excellent manual SLR camera from the Canon factory in America with a fixed 28mm lens f1.4 for $200 some time ago; it costs more than that just for the lens! I suppose I'll just have to keep on searching. The fastest lens I've got is a standard f2 Pentax lens; but even with that I'd need to use a higher speed film, because of the poor lighting conditions I'm working in. I'm too fond of ASA 100 to change.

For some reason almost all the cameras and lenses that are being sold nowadays don't take this type of photography into account.

 

Cheers Kwun,

They've got a Pentax 50mm f1.2 (I didn't even know Pentax made one); but it's $659 + shipping. It must be extremely rare, as the Pentax 50mm f2 is only £40 in the UK. Perhaps it's very expensive for a camera manufacture to produce equipment which isn't going to bought in bulk; but I shouldn't think it would cost them so much more to produce the faster lenses.
They're also selling the Tamron 28-200, which I bought in PhotoRoma in Italy some weeks ago for 330 Euros, for only $229! Now that's cheap!

If I can't find a reasonably priced Pentax fit lens, I think I'll buy a new camera body and then look for a Nikon lens, which seem to be more in vogue at the moment.

Is he willing to sell?

 

yyfan2003, i got a minolta s404, it's my very first camera.
I don't think it has many manual override feature on it.
Maybe i should get a hdtv camcorder instead and use image capture for still photo

 

I have tried using Nikon F4(my cousin's camera) and Nikon F90. It appears to me that Nikon F90 is faster than F4 when focusing and locking the target. Actually I feel more comfortable with the F90.

 

To sound like an idiot, would the new Canon EOS300D or Digital rebel (In US) with stock lens, be suitable for badminton pictures?

I need a digital camera for professional level work, (to produce up to A3 magazine size), and as a plus, to be able to take pics from badminton tournaments

 

ClearOne is bright for badminton, but dim for the camera. I was using a Canon EF 100mm F2.8 macro lens for the photos. I would have posted the pictures up, but I don't think my friends would be too thrilled since they're here on BF as well. I didn't want to use a flash because the burst of the flash would be disruptive to other people's games.

Here is a picture that I have just taken in my computer room. It is shot, without flash or tripod, at 1/10 sec, F4.5, at 28mm, with an ISO setting of 1600. If you save the file to your hard drive, I think you can still access the exposure settings and stuff from the properties settings of the picture. But the only reason I can do this is because of the Image Stablization technology behind the lens that I was using. Canon claims that IS can at least reduce the shutter speed by 1.5 stops. And in practice, I find that with a wide angle lens, a shutter speed reduction of 2 stops or more is often achievable.

-Rick

 

Hey Wizbit. The only gripe I have with the Digital Rebel is that its continuous shooting mode is "only" at 3fps, and the buffer is only good for 4 consecutive shots. Realistically, I don't think 3fps is bad at all. But the bigger problem comes from the slow writing speed of the CF card. When I am shooting RAW, it literally takes half a minute before the camera finishes transferring the 4 frames from the buffer to the CF card! If you are gonna get a Digital Rebel to shoot baddy pictures (or other action pictures, for that matter), don't go cheap on the CF card. Get one with those write acceleration technologies instead of the granddaddy original versions.

-Rick

 

Hey Traum, why is there a bottle of lotion and a roll of tissues at either side of your computer? (my range of facial expressions upon seeing them) . Perhaps you should have thought that shot through more carefully before taking it.

I finally found a Pentax 50mm 1.4 at a store in Dundee (North Scotland) for only £39; maybe the shop owner didn't realise how rare these lenses are or how desperate I was for one; I was prepared to pay almost 200% more for a new Nikon body and f1.2 lens. which has more or less the same quality and less manual features than the Pentax K1000.