Robert’s Photography Blog

Peter Gade won the AVIVA Open 2006 Men’s Singles title at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Sunday, June 11th. He trounced fellow shuttler Dane Kenneth Jonassen with masterful skill that resulted in a final score of 21-14, 21-10. Gade almost totally dominated the match often trapping Jonassen at the net then scoring with his deadly jump smashes. Jonassen could not respond fast enough to Gade’s attack and ultimately surrendered the title he had won in 2004.

I was determined to photograph both players smashing the shuttlecock into their opponent’s court. The ‘jump smash’ photo is the ultimate action shot in the sport of badminton. With no flash allowed and diffuse yellow-tinted stadium lighting, it was quite a challenge to catch the players at the peak of the jump. It only lasts a few milliseconds! Fortunately, I had a press pass that allowed me access to court side as I was shooting for a client.

Based on my experience at the preliminary rounds, I chose to use a Canon EOS 30D with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS lens mounted on a carbon fiber monopod. I set the camera mode to aperture priority (Av) locking the f/stop on 2.8. With the ISO set at 1000, the shutter speed varied between 1/400 and 1/500 sec. To track the moving players, I set autofocus to the AI Servo mode (for moving subjects/objects). Once set to AI Servo, I simply activated the autofocus with my right thumb* to track a moving player. I left the white balance on ‘auto’ and set ‘raw + small/fine jpeg’ as the file format. The raw file gave me more flexibility to correct white balance for the color cast from the stadium lighting.

*I activated Custom Function 4 (CF-4) which transfers autofocus operation from the shutter button to the exposure lock button, the left of the two small buttons on the top right of the camera back.

Confused about AI Servo and AI Focus - how they work and focus point selection? Read Chuck Westfall’s explanation in this classic post on Pro Photo Home.

Click here to see more photos from the AVIVA Open 2006.