International junior badminton championship

First attempt with sports photography. Taken with GX7 + 100-300 mk I. Auto ISO, shutter priority at 1/500 sec, centre-weighed metering.

Initially I was thrilled to test out the 40 fps "SH" burst mode on my GX7. Then I realized it is only available with 4MP image resolution. I switched on electronic shutter and the "H" burst mode in full 16MP ran up to about 10 fps. This was slower than my Nikon 1 J5 (see my other post in the Nikon 1 forum) but acceptable.

It was not until I ran this setup in the stadium, I realized the auto ISO was only available up to 3200. It was not bright enough to use SP at 1/500 sec (minimum 4000, as shown on my Nikon with a 70-300 4.5/5.6). I was forced to switch the mechanical shutter back on and I only got about 3 fps burst rate.

As a result, it was not fast enough to capture the flight of the bird (aka. shuttlecock) towards and away from the player, as well as the desired shot in most (90+%) of the shots.

Somewhat disappointing, but still a good practice run with the 100-300mm.

Nice set!  I'm an avid badminton player and good to see 1/500s works very well at this venue.

Looks like you did very well with challenging conditions. Thanks for sharing.

Fred_Last wrote:

addlightness wrote:

Nice set! I'm an avid badminton player and good to see 1/500s works very well at this venue.

Yes I would have liked to use a higher shutter speed but it was really restricted by indoor lighting. As you can see in the originals, there is smudging and tons of artifacts when you pixel peep.

I used to play badminton years ago (just amateur). Unfortunately I cannot play anymore because of frozen shoulder, despite having a lot of free time after my early retirement.

To be honest, they are all very acceptable(I don't pixel peep) despite the rather high ISO.  There're enough blur to suggest motion which is good IMO.

OT: I stopped playing for about 8 years due to frozen shoulder too.  I did a year of PT and the therapist suggested not to baby the shoulder too much and to 'challenge' the restrictions with gentle stretching and rubber-band exercise.  I was able to resume recreational badminton about 2 years after that.  I just need to be extra careful with overhead clears