Last 2 years I shot a few thousend badminton pictures. https://www.facebook.com/BadmintonFotos Equipment: Pentax K5, Sigma 17-50 2.8 and Tamron 70-200 2.8
I remember that about 8 years ago I was some silly teenager and I was posting on this forum somewhere, saying "I think that the more background blur the better" and someone else bashed me for that comment. Can't seem to find it anymore. Gave badminton photography a today for fun, at the SKYCITY New Zealand Open 2015 with a bit of a "documentary" style take on it. Let me know your thoughts
We need to see the most photogenic of them all... Gronya Somerville... But having blurred background is nice... just a product of having the aperture wide open and the zoom maxed out...
well jhirata you have developed into an incredible photographer outside of the badminton court. very very impressive indeed.
Jhirata, what settings are you using? How good is the light? And are these the only photos you are going to give us?
It is always refreshing for me to see how other people approach badminton photography. Sometimes I get inspired and incorporate some of the techniques into my own. When I first started looking at photos here, I questioned whether angled, non-leveled, crops work! But my appreciation of angled shots changed to positive after seeing Anita's work. And now I use that in certain circumstances. And a maxed out aperture opening usually is a decision more related to the limited available lighting in the venue, in order to minimize noise and maximize clarity, and to obtain a higher keep rate. Background blur is sometimes a pleasant by-product!
Cheung, the light is pretty good, I'm shooting at 1/1000 (Doesn't give me purple flickering stuff), ISO1000, f/1.8, 85mm (on D700 full frame).
Here's a few more from the semi-finals day. I don't know if I can make it to the finals but I'll see... Some generic "big jump" "big fall" "big lunge" "ready to serve" kinda shots in here too, but I find them quite cliche. My preference is to capture the players' expressions in between the rallies: it makes me wonder how the players themselves must have felt/thought during that moment, and for me it's the best way to feel more immersed in the game What's everyone's preference?
That's pretty good. I am pretty positive you can do ISO 1600. I sometimes find fully wide open at f1.8 gives me eyes that are out of focus. So I end up using 1/2 stop smaller. Not sure if it really makes that big a difference but I feel a bit better about the pictures. I find it is very hard to capture the expressions. They are very fleeting. I remember one player who has a deadpan face and trying to work on her. Eventually, I got bored with the time wasted! Lo and behold, Achan came up to me later saying the same thing on the same player. I think in general, players are loosening up a bit more on court over the past decades. A good thing for photographers and for badminton.
It is always more fun to shoot emotional players, and at the winning moment, even the most deadpan face player, would sometimes show some release of emotion!
Yes, I've been trying to learn that from her too! The difficulty for me is, I haven't yet make it a habit to stay on the player long enough to catch that emotion release after a long rally!
Oh yes... Lee Hyun Il was like that. Straight cold face, very gracious movements like he's thinking he's "been there and done that too many times" and probably thinking of retiring and going back to his family. Enjoyed photographing Boonsak Ponsana - entertaining rallies with a mixture of silliness and seriousness. The Chinese players had so much concentration. They looked like they were under a lot of pressure from whoever manages them. Nice to observe what's going on through photography at the sidelines of the court.
If you want want to catch expressions, younger players are better. But a lot is also the player's own personality. Lee Chong Wei and Kin Dan used to be very expressive on court. But if you get them now, you really have to choose the right moment of the event. And they don't really do it in a match anymore. Anita's shots are the standard that I aspire to.
