I know I need noise ninja so any recomendations would be greatly apperciated. I havn't shot hockey in about 20 years. Lighting sucked. C&C are more than welcome.Shooting at ISO 1600,canon 70-200 F2.8L
Jimmy B

overexpose! especially at high ISOs, overexposing will make your image look so much better. it will help to saturate the colors more, as well as making the whites much cleaner and give the image much less noise. a +1/3 image at ISO 3200 looks better than a -1/3 image at ISO 1600. lighting sucks yeah, but from the looks of it, you're not getting a lot of action blur here, so you can afford to drop your shutter speed a couple notches. try working with speeds lower than 1/500 as well. You don't need noise ninja necessarily if you know how to prevent noise well when shooting. give it a try.

Thank's Brent, I may go back to the rink tomorrow. And thank's for the tip on sharpening after resizing.
Jimmy B

Here's a few of mine from the same game. My big bonehead mistake was not changing my exposure after switching lenses. I figured I'd try and see if I could use the 28-135, but with f5.6 at 135mm the fastest shutter speed I could get was 1/200 so I decided to go with the 50mm. Too bad I forgot to change my settings so I shot the whole game at f5.6 @ 1/200. Doh. Oh well, I certainly won't do that again.

http://www.sparksonline.org/asm/tweety/goal.jpg

http://www.sparksonline.org/asm/tweety/hockey.jpg

http://www.sparksonline.org/asm/tweety/hockey3.jpg

Went back today a little better luck wit coloring. Moving shots still lack the clarity that I have seen in others photos.
Still frustrated.

jimmy, mind if i have a go at one of your images and repost?

Go for it.
Do most of you get these results shooting through the glass?
Tad good looking shots!

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8123/img15081copyvl3.jpg

it really can bea matter of photoshop sometimes...


here's one of mine through the glass
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7748/b70e3265ss5.jpg

it's really tough the nail the exposure on these because the white ice really throws the metering off, so you shoot in manual and check your histogram and preview. look for blinking spots (those are hot highlights). when you start to get a few highlights, you know you're at the right spot, especially with high ISOs. I don't mind losing whites in a couple spots.

Thank's for the work over Brent,Let me try figure it out It looks
like you changed the contrast, and sharpened more?
Jimmy

jimmy...

no on the sharpening. yes on the contrast. well, sort of. I never use the brightness/contrast tool because its too harsh of a tool, and it reall doesnt do much to make images a lot better. first I just opened up levels, slid the middle slider to the left some, then opened up curves, gave it an s-curve, booster saturation a bit, then using the desaturation sponge, desaturated the face because it was too fake looking. also desaturated the background a bit to make it not detract from the subject as much.

Using PS 6.0, here is a reworked one, better than the original.
Jimmy B.

jimmy...i dont mean to sound harsh, but I think you need to evalute your post processing workthrough and take some time to learn some of ins and outs of photoshop. the new image is very yellow, and looks like an old photo. colors are flat, and it's a bit oof. what did you do to this photo in photoshop, if you remember?


and it may also just be your monitor not being calibrated. is it calibrated? If not, search online for articles on calibrating your monitors to photographic standard. it won't give you the same results as a pro calibration, but good enough.

I can take the harshness anytime.I can not be faulted for trying.
Jimmy B

yeah, and that's exactly how you learn post processing, by trail and error. I recently went back and found some of my early edits, and they look absolutely horrible. I then edited the image further using the things I know now, and I noticed the big difference. but i didnt get there by reading anything or just watching, i learned by just doing it myself, getting it wrong, and improving the next time.

I have a question about why this one picture has a yellow tint only when I view the forum at work. When I first saw this post at home this picture looked great. Once at work I got an e-mail from Jimmy asking me if it looked yellow and sure enough it did. Back at home last night it looked great again. The obvious difference is that we have flourescent lights at work and standard lights at home. But if it's the flourescent lights that are making it look yellow, why don't all of the pics look yellow? I've tried several computers at work and it looked the same on all, but it's the same lighting and nearly identical monitors so that's not much help. Then I looked at it on my boss's computer as he has special flourescent lights that are supposed to allow you to see colors correctly and it still looks yellow. The only other difference is that this photo is attached and the others are embeded. Would that make any difference?

the difference is in the monitor calibration. some monitors are calibrated with a different white point. it's essentially the same concept as white balance. the lower the native white point, the cooler (blue) the photo will look, and the higher, the yellower. If you do not have your monitor calibrated, I recommend just going through the advanced steps on your computer to do so. it will make a world of a difference in photo editing, and will especially show when it comes time to print.

I understand about calibrating the monitor, what I don't understand is why it would only effect 1 picture. None of the other pictures in this thread, or any other thread have that yellow tint.

OK, I have been going through the shoot again and paying attention to histograms. Small tweeks in PS after resizing. Hopefully better.

yes, jimmy b, much!