glenerrolrd
Workshop Member
Thought you might enjoy seeing the M8 and the 135apo used to shoot tennis. More shots at my website...the images are up but some need to be reworked a bit .
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Thought you might enjoy seeing the M8 and the 135apo used to shoot tennis. More shots at my website...the images are up but some need to be reworked a bit .
Not only great stuff, but very inspiring. I typically opt for the Nikon and long glass when shooting sports. I've done some with the Leica, but I need to try more. BTW, the first shot here in this post is killer!! :bugeyes:Appreciate the kind comments . The close up shot is a demonstration that you can "nail the focus" using the 135apo on an M8. (Its not a good use of the M8 and I could do much better with my D3 and longer AF lenses because I could better eliminate the background clutter.) The image is pretty close to full frame about 90% as I wanted to shift the player to the right of the frame. The technique to do this requires (1)that you can spot focus to an point of the return and (2) that you can time the shot to catch the ball near the racket . The only advantage you have is that tennis movement can be predicted.
The next set shows the requirement to frame accurately ..the second new image is 100%.
The first new image ,from the upper deck in Arthur Ashe Stadium , was close to my first pick. Bigger image and better action..flying "pony tail" .....but sun on the face won the selection. Now if I was shooting for Sports Illustrated ( in my dreams ..right) I would have used a 400mm from the same spot. In fact the SI guys were shooting from my exact location .
I wasn t sure that I could make the 135/m8 work in these situations but I found that with practice , the infocus hit ratio continued to improve. When I shifted to the 75/2 for the night matches the results improved again. I did this to improve my street photography capabilities .