Hi there! I had no problems at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and US Open - carying Canon 300D with 50-200 lenses. But I have to say in every case I had a Player's Guest badge, co I cannot tell how it works with regular tickets.

Cool jf. What player(s) were you a guest of? Yes, I'm sure it's much easier with a guest pass. I'm going to try to get hooked up with a media pass this time at the US Open.

I actually brought a video camera into Roland Garros once, but I found out later that video cameras weren't allowed. That was in the mid-90's, so I don't know if the policy has changed.

I actually coach players. But anyway, I'm also tournament dorector of Prague WTA event and I cannot imagine we would prevent people from bringig their cameras or video cameras. We're happy people are making and posting their pictures. If you ever want to come to Prague in May, we reserve one photo pass for you ;-)

If you want to see some cool shots from this years tournament: http://pragueopen.cz/2007/gallery
Not done by me, unfortunately ;-)

Thanks jf, I may have to take you up on that offer! I would love to go to Prague some day. I heard it's beautiful there. I went with some friends last year to Amsterdam and Cologne (for the World Cup), and they continued on to Prague after I came back home. It sounded like a great time.

Thanks for the link, those are great pictures!

Glad you like it. If you plan to visit Prague, just let me know! Those pictures from Prague Open were done by one of the best czech sports photographers. He is a friend of mine, so I was able to watch him work lot of times. He has got an amazing feeling for situation but also very expensive hardware ;-) It is unbelievable to be able to use those tele-lenses, you can get som amazing closups and angles..

Thanks jf for your hospitality. Prague is definitely one of the places on my list to visit. This just bumps it up the list. Yes, I know what you mean. I remember watching the press photographers at the US Open taking super closeups from the upper level with their huge lenses. I wondered how in the world they are able to travel with those things! I'm sure it's great when you are taking the shots, but a pain to lug around from place to place.

My shoulders get tired just carrying around my (relatively) puny lenses.

Well, it looks like my contact will probably no longer be able to give me access to a media pass for the US Open, so I'm going to be on my own. She did get me a media pass to the Bank of the West Classic women's tournament though. So I got to take pictures with the other photographers courtside during the Mirza/Schnyder quarterfinal and the Hantuchova/Chakvetadze semis, as well as Ai Sugiyama's doubles matches.

I'll be in NY for the US Open August 31 to September 7, so I hope to get some good pictures there. I'll upload them to Zooomr if they ever get jUploadr working again with it!!

I'm back from the US Open and took lots of pictures. I even got invited to sit in the President's Box Thursday night for the Djokovic/Moya match.

The person assigning seats wasn't available, so we took a seat and I ended up right behind Candace Bergen (Murphy Brown and Boston Legal). After a while the lady with the clipboard came by and kicked us out of the seats. My water bottle slipped out of my hand as I was getting up and I sprayed Candace. Oops! Then I discovered that Alec Baldwin replaced me in the seat!

Just got back from the Pacific Life Open, and they also seem to allow any kind of camera as well as video cameras. I saw several people taking videos. It was annoying during one night match when a person had the video light on their camcorder during a night match right behind the baseline. He was sitting next to a friend who kept taking flash photos! Clueless.

At the SAP Open last month, they didn't allow any cameras with lenses over 6 inches long, so I couldn't take my 70-200 2.8. They even hassled me about my 28-70 2.8, which is just under 6 inches.

Here's a smart set of my pictures at the Pacific Life Open by the way:

http://www.zooomr.com/photos/toga/sets/30074/

Hopefully zooomr is up long enough for you to see them!