First ice hockey game

hewhoknows

hewhoknows

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Matt
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Im going to shoot my first ice hockey game this weekend and am pretty excited about it. I actually played the sport at a pretty high level for over 16 years when i was younger so have a handle on the sport itself which is a massive bonus.

I know the light is going to be challenging but have a few f2.8 lenses which should make things easier (24-70 & 70-200)

The questions I have are about some setting choices: Firstly is it advisable to shoot RAW or JPEG (i usually shoot raw for everything else) and I was also wondering what focusing and metering combination to use. I was thionking of matrix and AF-C on my D90.

Would appreciate any help or advice that could be offered :thumbs:
 
Matt,
Ive been photographing Ice Hockey for a number of years,and its probably the hardest form of photography,low changing light and fast unpredictable movement.

As youve stated,the faster the lens the better,your 70-200 should be perfect.
Exposure is the biggest problem,as the lighting recycles,and most rinks have different lighting spots around the rink.

For what its worth,Ive found it best to use aperture priority,definately shoot raw,so you can sort out white balance,and centre weighted metering and one point autofocus.

Hope this helps a little,unfortunately its a lot of trial and error,untill you find what works in your rink.
 
hanson16 said:
Matt,
Ive been photographing Ice Hockey for a number of years,and its probably the hardest form of photography,low changing light and fast unpredictable movement.

As youve stated,the faster the lens the better,your 70-200 should be perfect.
Exposure is the biggest problem,as the lighting recycles,and most rinks have different lighting spots around the rink.

For what its worth,Ive found it best to use aperture priority,definately shoot raw,so you can sort out white balance,and centre weighted metering and one point autofocus.

Hope this helps a little,unfortunately its a lot of trial and error,untill you find what works in your rink.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help mate, you pretty much confirmed what I had in my mind anyway so thats a bonus :thumbs:
 
I'll second what's said above in that it is very hard. Constantly flickering lights, dim at best and fast action.

Definately shoot raw, I move around a fair bit and some parts of the plexiglass have put slight colour tints on some shots which need individual adjustment in PP.

Have fun, it's one of my favourite things to photograph (as well as play!)
 
Thanks mate, really looking forward to it.

All the players are being introduced individually onto the ice with the lights off and a flashing strobe (behind them) and spot light on to add effect. I've been asked to try and capture these entrances which is going to be very testing, how would you guys approach this?

I'm off to take some test shots this evening and shoot the prepared changing rooms tonight which us a bonus
 
snapzz said:
Which rink are you shooting at?
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Telford Ice Rink. Know the place extremely well as it was my home rink for my 16 year playing career at junior, and senior levels.

Lighting is half decent and im hgeading up there tonight to do some test shots of the training session prior to the game tomorrow. Ill pop some up to get some feedback?

Just struggling to work out how im gonna tackle the strobed entrances as mentioned above :thinking:
 
Lighting levels are good at Telford but very orangey. I get around this by using an Expodisc for custom reading. Nothing else has got anywhere near getting it right in all the years I've been there.
 
OK so ive been down to the rink this evening to shoot some test shots and am pretty happy with my exposure and white balance, getting some good colours and well exposed shots.

The one thing that suprised me is alot of my test shots havent come out crisp or well focused, more so with the players who were moving at speed.

I shot in raw and used AF-C so my D90 would trank and continously autofocus. I also used single point focusing with my Sigma 70-200 f2.8 attached shooting at f2.8.

Im reviewing some images now and will post them up in the hope someone could offer me a few focusing tips
 
From looking at my images again this morning i think i could have possible used the incorrect AF-area focusing mode. I was using dynamic area and settging my focus point central but it seems that in alot of my pictures the boards behind the player are in focus more than the actual player himself!!

Would I be better using single point af-area focusing so that my camera will only focus at whats within the focus point, then if i miss my mark its my fault and not the camera trying to compensate for me missing my focus point?

:bang:
 
Matt,
Ive found that I have to use single point,otherwise,with all the colours around thye rink your going to have trouble.

On the matter of some of the shots beingh soft,what shutter speed were you getting,because anything below 1/500 with senior moving players,will give you motion blur.

Very intrested to see some of the shots.
 
hanson16 said:
Matt,
Ive found that I have to use single point,otherwise,with all the colours around thye rink your going to have trouble.

On the matter of some of the shots beingh soft,what shutter speed were you getting,because anything below 1/500 with senior moving players,will give you motion blur.

Very intrested to see some of the shots.
Click to expand...


Initially i was shooting aperture priority and getting shutter speeds of 500th and faster. I then went to full manual and majority were shot at 250th and 320th.

The motionless shots came out p[retty well like this one:


Pass the Puck! by Matt_Giles, on Flickr

and this one was ok:


Pre-game training....SHOOT! by Matt_Giles, on Flickr

But alot came out like these (and these were the worst of the lot but wanted to give a good comparison)

DSC_0042.jpg


DSC_0050.jpg


Not compositionally the best but i wasnt worrying about player placement, just wanted to try and get good exposure and focus.

Both shot using following settings:
f2.8
ISO1600
320th
custom white balance
manual mode


None of the 2 crappy images above have and any post processing at all.

Id say out of the 50 shots i fired off i had 2 or 3 keepers the rest were wowefully out of focus. I noticed that in some the advertising banners or boardings were in focus and the player wasnt. I looked back on ViewNX to see where my focus points were and alor of the time they werent on the players chest or head but off slightly maybe on an arm or a leg or a skate/stick etc.

Would appreciate any feeback you have?
 
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I've only shot ice hockey at one rink (Ally Pally) where there is now very good light. I found that nothing below 1/500 second worked and many of my keepers were at 1/640 and 1/800, all with single point AF (mainly centred as you have done) and ISO1600.

So maybe it is just the shutter speed?:shrug:
 
Well im home from my first encounter of shooting a ice hockey game and WOW....how hard!!! Was totally suprised by the light levels but was glad i learnt how to set a custom white balance from the ice as it saved my skin.

I had to content with real orangie light and struggled to keep my subjects in focus. I still had the bizzaar outcome of players in the background of some images perfectly in focus while the player I was actually focusing on was blurred!!

Ended up shooting majority f2.8 and between ISO1600 and ISO2500 which enabled me to have 320th up to 800th sec shutter speeds.

Shot over 300 images and after a quick skim though i reckon ive got about 30 that id class as good enough to process for keepers.

Ive done a fgew this evening ready for the local press, here's how they have turned out:

This one is definately the sharpest of the bunch:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/migcreative/5625099255/
Face Off by Matt_Giles, on Flickr



Behind the net by Matt_Giles, on Flickr


On the puck by Matt_Giles, on Flickr


Reach by Matt_Giles, on Flickr

This one boggles me. I was actually focusing on the ref in the middle here using single point focus but as you can see the fans around the boards are actually sharper!! Would love someone to give me an idea how that has happened!!


Drop the puck! by Matt_Giles, on Flickr
 
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Matt,
For a first attempt a lot of these are nicely exposed and sharp.Were you using your 70-200,as this might explain the depth of field on the last image if your were at the short end.
 
hanson16 said:
Matt,
For a first attempt a lot of these are nicely exposed and sharp.Were you using your 70-200,as this might explain the depth of field on the last image if your were at the short end.
Click to expand...

Yeah majority of those were taken with the 70-200 f2.8 and it took alot of getting used to to handle the depth of feild and focusing. Missed my spot alot of the time and the intended player was often out of focus with players behind them being more in focus.

Out of the 200 action shots i took i think i have around 35-40 that are worth processing as keepers.

Here's a lin k to my flickr set containing the rest of the ones ive processed so far: http://www.flickr.com/photos/migcreative/sets/72157626505962614/

Im starting to feel a little happier now I know ive got some semi-decent shots.

Whats your feedback on the others mate?
 
For a first go I think there extremely good.I really like the looker room images,the rest is just practice and experience.

I have some images on my flickr site,its sportsflair2000 if you want to have a look.
 
Excellent shots Marcus, really sharp and lovely colours. What was your set up for those shots and what type of focusing were you using, single point?

I found it quite hard to track a player and get my focusing spot on if im honest, which has led to majority of my images cast off. Those I have kept have had quite a bit of post processing done.

Do you have to do much PP to yours or are you getting it pretty spot on in camera?

EDIT: Added you as a contact too, hope you dont mind ;)
 
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Matt,all the images were taken single point,mostly top centre aimed at the head.

Images have been cropped and were all raw files and proceeded with basic levels.

They are mostly iso5000 and have been slightly over exposed with +1.0 to +1.3 compensation.

All were taken at Cardiff Ice rink,which has a massive difference in lighting.

Hope this helps,if you have any other questions just let me know.

Cheers
Marcus
 
Cheers Marcus, your help is definately appreciated as im off back to the ice rink this coming Saturday to shoot an kids game who my nephew plays for.

Im not sure if my D90 will work any good beyond ISO3200 so will ramp it up to that and see what happens. Like you I used single point focussing but had it mainly on the centre point which ill change to try top point so I can focus on the head more.

From other advice above im gonna try to shoot everything above 500th shutter speed which will hopefully cut out any more motion blur, should be fine with the kids.

Ive processed a few more this evening:


Dumping the puck by Matt_Giles, on Flickr


D-Man by Matt_Giles, on Flickr


Stormin Norman by Matt_Giles, on Flickr


The Big Dawg by Matt_Giles, on Flickr


The Budz by Matt_Giles, on Flickr


GOAL!!! by Matt_Giles, on Flickr

Wish the season hadnt just finished as i really want to get back out there and put right some of my mistakes and get more practice in :razz:
 
Told you the lighting at Telford was tricky! :thumbs: But if all the lights are turned on it is deceivingly bright. You should be able to achieve 320-400 at ISO 3200 very easy but another warning is to watch out for those big yellow and blue circles as the light reflects onto the players giving a cast from each.
 
Tell me about it, was definately an eye opener. I think once i set a custom white balance off the ice i got rid of alot of the orangie tinge from the lights though, my main issue was focus and that fact I found it very hard to get sharpe images!!
 
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