Australian Open, Day 6
Finished early tonight, courtesy of Mr. Marcos Baghdatis, who had to retire early from his match with Lleyton Hewitt with a shoulder injury. Two years ago their match finished at 4:30am, so it was a relief not to have to endure another marathon match. Wishing him a speedy recovery. Good variety of pictures today. Was [...]
Australian Open, Day 5
A couple of gadget notes today. First, I shot with the Canon 1D Mark IV all day. For the most part it was overcast, so the light was fairly flat. And it performed pretty much flawlessly. Autofocus was fast and dead on for most frames. The percentage of keepers was much, much, MUCH higher than [...]
Australian Open, Day 4
Day four. Back courts again. Stayed with the Canon 1DmkIII, just to give it one more chance. I felt bad ditching it so quickly for the mkIV. Not anymore. It was brutal today in high contrast conditions. Focusing accuracy was something like 1 in 7 frames. Maybe. I tried everything, changing the Servo focusing from [...]
Australian Open, Day 2
Day 2 brought lots of sunshine, and some pretty huge crowds. That’s more like it. I was assigned to the backcourts, which I actually kinda like. It’s a looser, more intimate atmosphere, and there’s more room for photographers to move around and work angles. The flipside is that there’s no vertical mobility -you’re stuck on [...]
Australian Open, Day 1 (first day with the Canon 1DmkIV)
Rain, wind, cold. Not a great first day in Melbourne for the tennis. Lots of matches delayed and then eventually postponed until tomorrow. This meant mostly indoor shooting, and as per usual for most sporting events, the lighting was dim (it’s fine for TV, but very dark for stills). Luckily Canon came to the rescue [...]