Keep Your Eye on the Ball

[dje]

My wife and I had an enjoyable evening at the tennis in Brisbane last night. This tournament is one of the lead-up events to the Australian Open in Melbourne. We saw an excellent match between World No 1 Victoria Azarenka from Belarus and Sabine Lisicki from Germany with Victoria emerging as winner. Here are a few shots from the night.

This is my first attempt at this sort of photography and I don't really have a good enough lens for this. However I guess the shots turned out OK. They were taken with a Sigma 17-70mm (aperture f/4 at the long end). I was dis-appointed that the security people wouldn't allow me to take my 70-300mm lens into the arena - rules are rules apparently and anything greater than 200mm is forbidden.

The first 2 shots are Victoria, the 3rd Sabine and the last two are Alexandr Dolgopolov from the Ukraine in a later mens match.

Comments welcome
Dave

[FootLoose]

That first shot is an interesting study in anticipation, Dave. Most of the crowd is focussed on the ball too, but the photographers with those gigantic lenses are all looking at the other end of the court.

I think the next two needed the ball in the photo, but I like the 2nd one too -- it's a nice action capture.

[dje]

Thanks for your comments Greg. It's interesting about the photographers and lenses - I have a similar shot where they are all looking at Azarenka serving. They seem to all work in unison ! I agree with you that balls in 2 and 3 would have helped. I do like #2 even though her back is to us. We were sitting at one end of the court and were only four rows back. But without a longer lens I couldn't get decent front on shots of the other end of court.

Dave

[jeeperman]

Nicely done, Dave. I can only imagine how tough the circumstances.

[dje]

Nicely done, Dave. I can only imagine how tough the circumstances.

Thanks Paul, it's always interesting to try something with new challenges.

Dave