[tennisbiz] Dark tennis courts

Watch what color you paint your courts or you won't be able to watch the
ball.

Our club recently resurfaced its courts. The color of the resurfacing was a
darker shade of green than the previous color. Players who were playing at
night immediately noticed that the lighting seemed to have dimmed. I didn't
think it was the lights.

With my experience as a professional photographer, I know that the tone of
surrounding surfaces dramatically affect the amount of light on a subject.
For instance, when photographing hockey and basketball games in the same
arena, there was twice as much light coming off the ice than from the
basketball court with the same arena lighting. (In photographers' terms,
there was one stop more light.)

The clear answer was that the darker resurfacing reflected less light onto
the courts and made nighttime tennis harder on the eyes.

Ron Cioffi
Webmaster, photographer and writer
http://www.tennisreporters.net
The world's best site for tennis commentary
p: 678.893.0252
f: 678.393.8112

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Received on Fri Aug 16 2002 - 12:28:43 CDT