Some pictures of Dan, James, Mark, and Steve playing Pickleball

Per photography notes at the end, this was my second time shooting pickleball. Capturing fast action indoors (low light) is challenging ... so this time, I brought "my own light to the party" as Don, James, Mark, and Steve were OK with me setting up a remote flash on the court ... which helped a LOT. Pictures are in rough chronological order - the second section is multiple frames animated.

I've shot baseball, frisbee, golf, soccer, skiing, and tennis ... so when my my (expert) neighbor played pickleball with the "Pro", I tried(!) taking pictures. Capturing fast action indoors (low light) is challenging ... and I ended up at F/2.8, 1/800s at 3200ISO - YIKES! The pictures are very noisy and "flat" ... so while they may look decent on a small screen phone (LOL as just about everything does!), they "fall apart" on the big screen as they are really noisy with limited dynamic range.

If possible (stay tuned), a good photographer "brings their own light to the party" ... so I was curious to see what I could with flash. Specifically, I was thinking one (or more) flash units placed at the base of the net (with a shirt/towel to cushion falls from getting hit) to light up players when they are just outside the kitchen. This should allow me to do a couple stops faster exposure ... plus flash will help "isolate/freeze" the action ... kinda like when smashing apples!

One aspect that makes this MUCH easier is that the players are usually just past the kitchen line ... so you can dial in the exposure, especially flash. So I put it at the center of the net facing outward - I didn't take a "setup" picture, but you can see some "spillover" flash in the 5th picture from the top. We were on court 8, and (unfortunate choice), I had it pointed toward court 7 rather than the empty space on the other side. This ended up being bothersome to the other players (understandable) ... so I moved it further over their direction, but pointed more back the other way. Plus I added a diffuser (gold for color temperature - maybe a bit too warm) to reduce the "sharpness", along with draping the towel to minimize light going their way. I think this worked pretty well (as I checked in with them several times), but had the disadvantage that the light source was a bit more off angle than I wanted, plus it was now just that half of the court that was well lit.

After some initial dial-in, I tried F/2.8, 1/250s (maximum flash sync speed), and 400ISO - flash power of about 1/2 seemed to work well ... albeit that severely limits my multi-shot time as the unit re-charges. I ended up at F/2.8, 1/500s at 1600ISO ... so that's almost two stops faster than no flash. I could have done more ... but then the background can potentially be too dark (which might look artistic - should have tried this!) as I have to increase the flash power to compensate. Flash power was about 1/8 ... so faster recycle (albeit I'm at High-Speed Sync), so faster recycle and better able to do multiple shots w/flash.

I knew this would be distracting to the players ... but they told me they got "used" to it - LOL "good training" when/if they become celebrities and the papparazzi shows up! ;-)

Overall, I was happy with the results, especially for a first time out using flash ... but I'm still on a learning curve so think I could improve quite a bit next time. Next time, I'd be curious to try a couple of flashes lighting from both sides (within the constraints of bothering the people on the nearby courts) and push the ISO down to 800 to improve image quality ... and try a faster shutter speed.

Court 8 is "good" because there is nothing on the other side ... and I think the wall backdrop makes for clean pictures ... plus the flash will light that up a bit so not so dark ... albeit watch out for shadows. I'm outside the fence (so "safe" for me and the players) and the 70-200 lens has plenty of reach ... so I was able to try a variety of angles to try to capture the player in a good pose ... but not have the other team block the shot. Note that the Front court would alleviate any concerns about bothering other players with the flash ... but a challenge there would be finding a location for the photographer to *safely* shoot.

As with any sports being actually played, capturing a good/great image is very difficult. Even being able to anticipate action, you basically just shoot a bunch of pics and hope some percentage comes out decent. It would be kinda fun to do a "staged" photoshoot for "hero" pictures ... like an ATP. This should not be difficult - once exposure/flash/etc. is dialed in, just have them keeping hitting the ball. Or LOL since it's hard to time the moment of impact, have NO ball and add it in post-production.