That's good equipment for starting out. The 50mm/1.8 should be fine when starting out. Well, it is cheap. I used it for a year and a half before getting tired of it. Main problems with badminton - slower focussing speed and sometimes a bit hard to nail down the focus (in non-badminton shots). I think it's because the focus steps are quite large. I did get some good shots using it though. Since you are only interested in the equipment for badminton, you really need to stick to the f2.8 or larger aperture lenses. Avoid any f4 lens because you'll be wasting cash. Can't stress that enough. Sigma do not do any short range zoom lenses that have HSM. I would think that HSM is important - the lens can focus a lot quicker with it. I'd say stick with the 50mm for the time being. Kwun's suggestion of 85/1.8 or 100/2 are very sensible for the future.
At the moment I am only using Canon 24-70 f.2.8L and 70-200mm f.2.8L. When the lights are extreme low I have the 50mm f.1.8 and the 85mm f.1.8. Together with my Mark II, the autofokus seems the same on all of them, but on my 30D autofokus is to slow on all. The 50mm has not to much glass to move around, so even without hsm it is still ok (and very cheap.) You can take excelent pictures with the 50mm. This one is taken with 30D and the 50mm. Start with it and build up your collection Best Regards Johansen www.badminton-nyt.dk www.fjerbolden.dk
new toy has arrived!!! shame i picked up a cold from somewhere.. feel like poo.. hard to take pics when your sniffling non-stop.. All the best for the new year everybody.. Neil
cheung - you had a 20d for badders pics didn't you? did anybody get bothered by the shutter noise? seems pretty loud to me and just a bit bothered that everybody will get narky with me for taking pics while theyre playing - especially if i do the continuous shooting.. what do you think?
I have taken pictures of badminton for several years, the most of the pictures with my 30D. Even if you think the shutter noise is loud no one will notice it. Regards Johansen www.badminton-nyt.dk www.fjerbolden.dk
Agreed, the players won't listen the shutter sound but some will feel uneasy when u are shooting them. They remind themself in keeping a good form.
I wouldn't worry about it. It seems loud because you're playing with it in a quiet room away form extraneous noise. Once on court, there's other background noise which will make the shutter sound negligable.
cheers cheung - i suppose my ears are pretty close to the source of the noise so it could seem pretty loud.. my dad's junior coaching class starts again next saturday so i'll have a whole 4 hours of guinea pigs to try and practice on... working up from fairly static subjects to all action maniacs in the older class somehow i'm gonna have to try not to use all the battery up before the end.. i've got plenty of space for pics tho 4gb cf card turned up in the post on friday heehee - check out my random high shutter speed pics. you know your shutter speed is high enough when water turns to ice http://picasaweb.google.com/bigcoops/Highshutterspeed?authkey=7kpc0uuKFA0 Coops
Remember to shoot in raw.. - very important. 4gb is only around 500 - 600 pictures on my Mark II, so it is not a lot of space. Last time is was out I had by mistake only put an 1gb card in. It took only 20 minutes to get it full :crying: Best Regards Johansen www.badminton-nyt.dk www.fjerbolden.dk
If you're only practising, JPEG should be fine. You'll get funny colours in the pictures and you can go to this thread for answers. Funny, at the time I did not fully understand the problems. Now, I still don't understand!!!
i'm now crossing my fingers and hoping the lighting in our local sports hall aren't of this type.. cheers for the tip on shooting in RAW - i had it set on the highest quality JPG.. bumped it to raw now. have to look at getting some nice software now. Photoshop seems to the way to go.. Neil
Neil, since you are on a budget, just use DPP first. It's pretty easy to use and free! Fixing the colour and cropping the photos are pretty easy.
fortunately we have photoshop at work.. and i've got fireworks already as well. i'm sure i can 'acquire' photoshop at home as well.. Cheers Neil
I am sure you will get much fun in badminton photography. Althuogh you shoot in raw, try to practice more on setting custom wb. 4Gb cf is not big for high speed shutter mode i.e. 5fps, I usually bring 13Gb for a match. You may then need to switch to high quality jpeg to yield more photos. And, you can try shooting from different angles with different ISO, aperture & shutter. Enjoy!
after a little PP, these are the ones i'm reasonably happy with. didn't really gert a lot of chanc to move around the court.. there isn't that much space. and i need to sort the WB out, and be a bit more careful with the exposure. shot all these wide open at f/1.8 iso1600 1/800 http://picasaweb.google.com/bigcoops/Badders?authkey=IlP4ZJ1MIJA
not bad for the first try! how many frame did you shoot in total? black shirt/shorts are difficult to focus on. your gym has pretty good light level. that's near the best you can expect from a local gym.
