I'm looking towards buying a lens or two for badminton shotting. I currently only have the kit 15-55 f/3.5-5 which seems to be way too slow. This is also in preparation for taking pictures at the collegiate nationals where I have no idea of lighting/room/etc. I'm looking at: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/40755-USA/Pentax_20817_Normal_SMCP_FA_50mm_f_1_4.html right now, but looking for suggestions by all you experienced gents.
that seems to be a good choice. i am not familiar with the Pentax lens line up but from browsing through B&H, this is probably the best choice for 1.5x crop sensors given that you are able to get close to the court.
So, I've gotten my 50mm f/1.4 and I love it, but I do wish that it had a bit more range to it. As a lower cost solution, I was thinking of a 1.4x teleconverter from tamron which runs for 100-125$. Another option would be a 71 limited: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/388316-REG/Pentax_27980_77mm_f_1_8_Limited_Autofocus.html but that is a hefty amount more. Aside from that, maybe it's time to move away from primes?
I find myself moving away from zooms and using primes more. It depends what sort of picture you are after. To get better colours from using lower ISO e.g. ISO800, I take the prime out taking advantage of the lower aperture. Zooms are good at vital points to capture emotion where you do not know where the player is going to be on court.
I love my prime too, but there is always a shot where I wish I had a bit more reach. I've thought about just cropping a bit, but I'm shooting at 6mp, 1600iso; I feel like there's not much I can do in term of editing that wouldn't put the picture below my threshold of acceptance. Another thing with aperture is my camera's slow focus.c which causes a lot of out of focus shots. I've almost given up using af and use manual for a lot of shots. Maybe it's not just my displeasure with my lens but also my camera or maybe I just need to understand my camera a bit more.
u say that. but my photo partner uses a 350D for this set of photos: http://flickr.com/photos/wengcloo/sets/72157604439065625/ i was pretty impressed as i am not getting much better shots with my mk3. shows that the skill matters.
They are quite good, may I inquire as to what lens he is using? It seems like a lot of the photos are being shot at lower apertures. I'm also curious about the lighting conditions at GGBC on that day. It might be just the environments that I'm shooting at and my camera (which is actually known to have bad AF, especially in low light conditions) that is causing my frustration. Also noticing a lot of throw the net shots, is this done with AF or M?
he use 17-55/2.8, 50/1.4 and 70-200/2.8 IS. the low aperture, as you may have guessed is not by choice. the lighting condition is around ISO3200, f/2, 1/400s i am not sure about the through-the-net shot. maybe a bit of both.
actually, there aren't a lot of true through-the-net shots. most of the subjects are not in the net. the AF can be achieved by focusing on the head or the legs. and sometimes when the subject is difficult to focus, eg. black shirt or white shirt with no pattern, it is probably better to forget about taking photos of it...
yeah. unfortunately, sometimes we just say "too bad" and go off to photograph someone else who has that nice red/orange/multicolor shirt with patterns on it.
