I'm going to the US Open later this month and want to take some shots. Unless I give in to temptation and buy an EOS3 body, I'll be using my trusty EOS600(630) with a 70-200L/2.8, possibly with the 2x extender. I expect to be shooting with the aperture wide open, and using fast-ish film - 400 I reckon. I've never shot tennis before and I want to know what will be the best shutter speed to freeze the action but not to freeze the ball when it flies around at 100mph. I want to have a 'slightly blurred' ball in the shots to make them less static. Also, advice on where to stand to get the best angles and protocol for shooting tennis would be helpful. Any advice would be appreciated. - Asif

-- Asif Lakhanpal (Asif_NSX@yahoo.com), August 14, 1999

Answers

An object (tennis ball) moving at 100 MPH / 140 feet per second / 1.68 inchs every one thousandth of a second.

If you are shooting from the side of the court using shutter speed of 1/1000 the image of the tennis ball will be elongated by 1.68 inches.

If you were shooting from end court and ball is coming directly at you the ball would get 1.68 inces closer to the camera during the shutter interval.

-- Larry Albert (larry.albert@murraystate.edu), August 15, 1999.