TENNIS PHOTOGRAPHY AT UCLA

Tennis is a fast paced sport. With serves and rallies going at lighting speed, you need to be able to make sure that your camera can keep up.

Sports photography requires an insane amount of concentration. You need to know when you take the Burst, how long to keep taking photos, and what kind of composition you are looking for.

Camera Gear Worth Considering

So about camera gear, although the gear you have shouldn’t matter too much, if you really want to dive into sports photography, I recommend having:

• A camera with a great autofocusing system ( for example: Sony Alpha Cameras )

• A lens with great glass that has great autofocusing motors. ( The pictures seen here were taken on a Sony GM 35mm f/1.4 )

• An SD card with a fast read and write speeds ( V60 class or above ).

• A Zoom lens to get some tight upclose shots of the players expressions.

This should the base of all sports photographers, there are definitely additions that would greatly help as well, so I apologize if I missed any, but I wanted to keep things simple for now.

Camera settings

As for your camera settings, good lighting and high shutter speed is key. The players are moving around at insane speeds, so we want to keep the subject tack sharp.

Change these settings on your camera:

• Switch your autofocusing mode from single shot autofocus to continuous autofocus.

• Make sure your minimum shutter speed is at least 1/800s.

• Switch your shooting mode from single to continuous.

  • There are different types of continuous settings, I recommend the highest. ( ex. HI+)

CAmera Composition

So how should we take these photos?

I recommend not staying at head height the entire time, switch it up! Make sure to get low to the ground to establish a ground up shot, giving the subject more authority. And usually I see a lot of close up shots of the player, which is great, but I also love wider angle shots showing the context of the court, possible audience members and so on. It’s also worth considering getting shots of the people watching too, to show some emotion established on the court.

Here is one shot I like particularly, it was shot between the net, and it really gave an interesting view of my subject.

For those of you that want that creamy bokeh, make sure to bring an ND Filter, to open up that aperture and get that beautiful out of focus background everyone loves.

I had a blast shooting at this tennis session, running around with my camera to find interesting way to tell Will’s story at UCLA. I hope this post helps you out in your next photoshoot. If you are looking for a session with me, you can do so by filling out a form below!