How to Photograph Tennis

With tennis pictures, you can avoid several of the common problems with sports pictures. There are at the most four players on the court at one time, the players are easy to focus on and the court is small, so long zooms are not necessary. Taking decent tennis pictures is easy, but you can utilize a few tricks to take excellent pictures.

Instructions

1. Start behind the court. The fence will be in your way, but you can stick the lens of your camera through a link. This gives you a great view of servers and players running toward the net.

2. Focus on the server. Take pictures of the tennis player who is serving and then switch sides when the serve changes. It's hard to get pictures of players on both sides at the same time, but at least this way you can get good pictures of all players.

3. Move to the sidelines. From the sidelines, focus on the players moving their sides toward you. This is generally not a good place to get serve pictures, but you can get good shots of forehands and backswings.

4. Watch the rackets. The key to timing tennis pictures is to watch the player's racket. Snap the picture just as the player swings her racket back and is about to swing it forward. This will help you get the tennis ball in the picture. If you can see the ball when you snap the picture, it will be long gone by the time your shutter opens.

5. Use a shutter speed of 1/800 of a second or faster to stop the movement of the ball. One of the good things about tennis pictures is tennis is usually played in the daytime, which means you can take sharp pictures at fast shutter speeds. On a bright day, move the shutter speed up as high as it will go to get a crisp tennis ball in the picture.

6. Get some reaction shots. Occasionally, pick a player, point your camera at him and wait for the volley to end. After a long volley the players usually provide an emotional reaction, either positive or negative.

Tips & Warnings

• Avoid moving during a volley. While the ball is in play, it's important to remain still and quiet. Change position between volleys.