Tennis: Loughborough Trophy Challenger event

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Went up the road to Loughborough three times this week to watch the inaugural ATP Challenger Loughborough Trophy event.

Couple of Davis Cup players were making their returns; Dan Evans following a year's suspension after a positive cocaine result, and James Ward who was on the road to recovery after knee surgery.

I tried a couple of bodies and lenses, having recently acquired a D3 in the classifieds here. The only issue being that as an indoor event, the light was fairly poor and hence higher ISOs were a necessary evil, so my D800 came out to play too as it handles noise that bit better.

Anyhow, here's a handful of shots. Nothing revolutionary, but I enjoyed taking them, see what you think.


Maximilian Neuchrist
by Ben Goddard, on Flickr


Yosuke Watanuki
by Ben Goddard, on Flickr


Ante Pavic
by Ben Goddard, on Flickr


Dan Evans
by Ben Goddard, on Flickr
 
Not far off what I'd expect. Tennis can be a little tricky because the bounce of the ball introduces a random element that can often throw the aesthetic appeal of a shot completely out. Take the bottom shot of Dan Evans as a prime example. If the ball was slightly lower against the black background it would probably elevate the appeal of the image significantly for me.

I wouldn't worry myself too much about high ISO etc indoors. Even when indoor venues are being lit for TV they tend not to offer much light for photographers. The Davis Cup the other year at the Emirates Arena was around ISO3200 while Andy Murray Live at the SSE Hydro was somewhere between ISO6400 and ISO12800 to shoot at high enough shutter speeds at f/2.8.

If you want to be really picky then:

1. Decent follow through shot but with the ball not being in the picture I don't tend to like a wider shot at this point. I'm guessing on the 80-200mm you don't have a great deal of choice but when I'm doing this kind of shot I want to get close in on the head. My 'go-to' is to try to get a tight shot of the racquet as it comes around behind the head. Generally looking for some sort of facial expression as opposed to body position.

2. I like this shot. The ball has been kind and bounced up nicely in front of Watanuki's shirt to give you a lovely contrast. Good, solid action pose too with Watanuki 'in flight'. Best shot of the four for me.

3. The actual action here is really good and I like the pose. The big downside though is the line judge in the background. Distracting backgrounds are a real pain in tennis and I try to avoid them where possible as I think they really detract from what can be great photos. It's another hugely frustrating part of tennis but the appeal of a photo just goes up massively if you can eliminate the line judges.

4. This one is again a good pose. It's that 'load up' pose that I love using when a player hits a backhand slice. The only thing really going against this photo is that you have been a bit unlucky with regards to the bounce of the ball. Because it has popped up in front of Evan's arms it doesn't pop out of the image quite as well as it would had it been slightly lower and against the black background. Normally this is the main frustration I have with any tennis event I cover. I can take a dozen snaps of any particular player hitting the same shot looking for that one where the ball has bounced up to where I want it in the pic. From looking at your Flickr I can see you have a similar one of Evans where the ball is on his wrist. Frustrating as again it's a nice image!
 
Thanks for the very constructive criticism Craig!

1. I do have a shot with the ball in frame in this sequence but it is in front of the player and the follow through shot was much more expressive so I went with that one.
2. Thanks! Pleased with this one too.
3. Damn pesky officials getting in the way, who do they think they are?! Difficult to avoid them, but didn't mind quite so much how she filled the space between the racket head and his leg so went with it.
4. Fractions of milliseconds amiss, even at high fps there's elements of luck about precisely where in the frame the ball is. C'est la vie!

As you point out, with a max 200mm of zoom I was limited to the amount of zoom I could get, so close zoomed in shots were out of the question. Entry criteria limited lenses to no longer than 300mm extended so I didn't take my 300mm f4 which may have helped. I also tried to not get on people's nerves in the crowd too much running off 9fps bursts everywhere, so had a relatively small selection of shots and tried to time my captures rather than spray and pray, but again, it's the luck of the draw exactly where the ball sits in the frame.

Cheers, Ben
 
It's that 'load up' pose that I love using when a player hits a backhand slice. The only thing really going against this photo is that you have been a bit unlucky with regards to the bounce of the ball. Because it has popped up in front of Evan's arms it doesn't pop out of the image quite as well as it would had it been slightly lower and against the black background. Normally this is the main frustration I have with any tennis event I cover. I can take a dozen snaps of any particular player hitting the same shot looking for that one where the ball has bounced up to where I want it in the pic. From looking at your Flickr I can see you have a similar one of Evans where the ball is on his wrist. Frustrating as again it's a nice image!

PS Remembered another shot of Dan that might tick the box a bit better:


Dan Evans
by Ben Goddard, on Flickr
 
I actually like that shot of Evans more than the other just because of the ball position.

I actually like that you've got a lot of full body shots. If I was to be critical of myself I would say I don't do nearly enough of those. I think there's always something in my mind where I see the average forehand/backhand and a lot of empty space around the player. I always feel the urge to cut down on the uninteresting space by cropping tighter around the upper body. Just looking back through some of my own stuff and I generally only go full body when someone is stretching for the ball.
 
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