How to shoot better hockey?

[Carson]

Hi
I have been shooting my kids playing hockey with a Rebel XTi with a Canon 70-200 f2.8. Some are better than others. This example was on Av at 1600 ISO. The Shutter ended up at 1/250. I think I was a couple clicks more exposed. I don't think it looks too bad but I am sure there is lots of room for improvement (I also like it because he saved it!) I have tried lots of different settings but I can't seem to find what works the best. Any ideas or suggestions? Maybe this is as good as my little camera can do? I have tried RAW but found the processing to be too much of a pain. It would be nice to shoot with a bit faster shutter speed to get rid of the puck blur but then things often get too dark - maybe I am going to far beyond 1/250?
Thanks much for your time.

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b8...D550/ry%3D400/

[dhyravy]

I think a custom WB would help with the colors a bit. Most hockey shooters I know use the ice to get a WB then adjust to overexpose it a stop or two. The only other alternative for shutter speed would be to go with a faster prime lens or strobes.

[DHMN69]

Is your kid the goaltender? I've known some hockey parents who's kids were goaltenders.. neither of the fathers could sit still during their son's high school season.. always walking around not wanting to watch. It's gotta be the most stressful sports parenting I'd imagine (not having kids myself.)

[Carson]

Is your kid the goaltender? I've known some hockey parents who's kids were goaltenders.. neither of the fathers could sit still during their son's high school season.. always walking around not wanting to watch. It's gotta be the most stressful sports parenting I'd imagine (not having kids myself.)

Hi
He is the goalie. Sometime can be very nuts - it is always a roller coster.

[JSPhoto]

You have to set the WB off the ice as Daniel said, and it changes as you move around.

John

[JSPhoto]

Being a goalie is fun though I played goalie as a PeeWee and then in high school. I had a lot of fun doing it, and a couple injuries as well though.

John

Hi
He is the goalie. Sometime can be very nuts - it is always a roller coster.

[DHMN69]

I love hockey as a fan, and see at least 100 games over the winter between high school games and two college teams.. but I never really got the knack of STOPPING while skating so I took up basketball instead

[JSPhoto]

Hmmm, Cloquet eh? I lived in Duluth and played there a couple times in the late 60's and early 70's. I played for Chester Park :thumbsup:

John

[Oldin Sloe]

These guys ^^^^ know their stuff.
Try to get someplace you are NOT shooting through the glass.
Auto WB is ok, if you are going to process is some sort of Photoshop.
WB off the ice is better but as mentioned above it changes, back to PS.
Overexposed 1 step is almost a must, at least with my Canon stuff.
I shoot RAW, process to Jpeg in Canon software, do a auto level batch process in PS.
I started shooting my sons hockey about 3 years ago and it has been a progression. I still struggle keeping the boards as a horizon level. Have fun with it and by the time he is a Bantam you will be a pro.

If I get any really good ones (not many, lol) I save the raw in case one of the parents on the team want a big print.

[SmartWombat]

Part of the problem is that hockey seems to played mostly in dimly lit caves

A high ISO setting (at least 1600) is probably going to be needed, and you must avoid under-exposure.
If you the measure exposure and white balance from the ice, then the camera meter will get the exposure wrong.
The camera assumes that you're photographing an average scene, and a large expanse of white ice is not average ! So if you use what the camera thinks is the proper exposure it's going to come out grey, and the shadows will have a lot of noise in them.
That's why you should over-expose according to the camera's reading of the scene.
Same principle as taking photographs of skiing.

Shooting RAW gives you a bit more latitude in post-processing - I shoot almost nothing but raw now. The exception is when I must have the images immediately, and don't need highest quality.
I have changed over to using Lightroom for viewing, cataloguing, and first edits.

If you can't get faster than 1/250 then there will be motion blur, but that's not always a bad thing - the sense of motion in the image from the blur on the puck works in your photo.


If you're lucky the lighting is the same all over the ice, and you can set a manual exposure about 1 stop more than the camera meter says and shoot away.
If the light changes then using exposure compensation +1 (or maybe more) and letting the camera do auto-exposure works pretty well.

Check your histogram while you're shooting. The ice peak shouldn't be right at the right hand end, but towards the right. For your image after adjusting exposure +0.4 stop the peak is at a little over 3/4 the way to the right, before adjustment it's just under 3/4.

[DHMN69]

Shot at a hockey game I went to watch last night.. some are fine and some are just ok.. but I post them anyway .. ironically the last 10 or so were shot in Av just to see how that affected the lighting.. maybe of them still ended up at 1/400's so they weren't what I'd call blurry bad but I didn't end up editing the brightness as much, just 'auto-levels' in elements for most of them.

http://www.viewthroughmylens.net/Gal...rlsHockey.html

I am putting the money forth to purchase a flash finally in the next couple weeks, which will be good for hockey and won't affect the players either.

[retroactiv]

I'd say get a flash but if you do, it's the end of you shooting from behind the glass as you'll get that great newbie flash and nothing else photo. It's to bad you don't have some strobes to sit out because that is what would make them perfect. But if you can set your lens to f/2.8 then use the flash they will be a ton better.

[DHMN69]

I won't even shoot behind a net because of glass and the protective spectator net.. if *I* do hockey with a flash it'll be from corners and center ice. The arena from the shots I did last night has a dark colored roof so it may not be productive to aim the flash off the ceiling either? It's a nice arena as far as plenty of spots to see the whole ice from over the glass though...

Hoping to see more of Carson's photo attempts from people's advice.

[DHMN69]

One more thing I haven't tried but might this weekend is element's 'Tooth whitening' thing with the ice.. wonder if that would help with the 'noise' the snow makes after half a period of playing.

[SmartWombat]

If the roof is more than a few feet above your head, don't bother.

Light falls off with the inverse square of the distance.
You know how flash shots (not fill) have black backgrounds as the light falls off?
If you add the distance up to the roof and back, the light reaching the ice may be almost nothing off a dark roof.

It's not like a ceiling only a couple of feet above your head, where bounce flash works well because most houses (except goths?) have light ceilings.

[DHMN69]

http://www.viewthroughmylens.net/Gal...VsHibbing.html *MY* next go-round with high school hockey.. our home arena lights are lower (height-wise) than where I did the shots last Thursday..

Still waiting for Carson to come back with more photos from the advice given here!

[DHMN69]

Last night's game was such a blowout (the bad way) that I did a bit of experimenting and noticed that my camera setting was on 'Faithful'... I don't remember monkeying around with that but I switched to 'Landscape,' which I did the college football with this fall.. in Landscape it seems that even with the 1/200 required by the XS with flash... had better stop minus the blur in other pics. It also seemed to bring in more light so I'll be experimenting with that stuff more in the future.

The REST of last night's pics...