p.1 #1 · White Balance at Ice Arenas: Your Approach?
I don't do a lot of hockey -- just enough to stink at it.
Just curious how you regular hockey and ice skating shooters set your WB when walking into a new arena. I know it can be fixed later shooting in RAW -- but I'd rather get it right in camera as far as possible.
Gray cards, Expodisc, auto, set in live view, guessing ?
p.1 #5 · White Balance at Ice Arenas: Your Approach?
I do a direct measurement off the ice before the Zamboni comes out and create a white balance preset. I shoot almost exclusively through the glass, so I set my WB through the glass, too.
p.1 #6 · White Balance at Ice Arenas: Your Approach?
Dirty Ice, as suggested. Set your exposure but you need to ignore the in camera meter! Look at your histogram and shoot almost to the right. Your meter will show 1-2 stops hot. Set a custom WB on your camera, on my nikon it is pre. shoot the dirty ice and your camera will either reject it or say GD. Once you are set, shoot a few images and check your color and exposure. I set a CWB every time I move to a new location. If you are shooting thru the glass buy one of those cheap rubber hoods and press your lens right to the glass, helps with reflections. Would also suggest positioning yourself to get your lens perpendicular to the glass, the more you angle the tougher it will be to get a good shot. A fisheye is great behind the net. Try and shoot from the penalty box if possible or a glass hole if your rink has them. We also shoot elevated for pro hockey above the glass, unobstructed with a 200-400 gets pretty good , isolated images. Have fun a spot a few images!
p.1 #7 · White Balance at Ice Arenas: Your Approach?
I carry a WhiBal keychain sized card in my bag. When I go into a venue to shoot, I take a custom white balance reading (from the overhead lights) and I'm almost always good to go. Once in a while I have to tweak the WB, but rarely.
You can also shoot it for a reference for post if you wish.
p.1 #8 · White Balance at Ice Arenas: Your Approach?
What camera(s) are you shooting? I used to set a custom balance off the ice, but the last couple years shooting with newer Nikons' (D5 and D500) the auto(0) setting works great, I shoot jpg and upload in between periods to client, and rarely have to fix white balance.
p.1 #9 · White Balance at Ice Arenas: Your Approach?
D5 -- and I think the auto works very well indeed in the rinks where the lighting is passable or better. It's the gray dungeons where I had problems. I bought an Expodisc and have shot a couple games since ... it does a good job and it seems to have cured the issue. But I still find I need to knock the color temp down -1 or -2 Lightroom coming out of the dungeons quite often, which is no problem ... and a lot better than my previous efforts!
p.1 #10 · White Balance at Ice Arenas: Your Approach?
RussHons wrote:
What camera(s) are you shooting? I used to set a custom balance off the ice, but the last couple years shooting with newer Nikons' (D5 and D500) the auto(0) setting works great, I shoot jpg and upload in between periods to client, and rarely have to fix white balance.
The D500 is really damn good, far better than my D4.
