We took my 3 year old grandson for his first hockey lesson. I have never shot hockey or any indoor sports. Read a bunch. Took a bunch of test shots and settled on a WB of 3700K. Switched from 70-200F4is to my 85 1.8 for a bit more speed. Had to shoot through the glass and there was some glare at times. I am not too unhappy for our first time, but there is always room to improve. Any thoughts and feedback is appreciated. I do shoot in jpeg.
It looks like your white balance is off (greenish). It's hard to judge the white balance by looking at the display on the back of your camera as these are usually not color calibrated.
My recommendation is to get a grey card.
If you shoot in JPEG, do a custom white balance before you shoot (make sure that you set your shutter speed at 1/60 to absorb a full cycle of the lights).
If you switch to shooting in RAW, you can just shoot a few pictures of your grey card in various sports / orientations around the rink and use that in post to adjust the white balance.
You can always do a custom white balance off a dirty sheet of ice (before the zamboni takes the ice). That will give you a good setting as well. Figure its not easy to get a grey card on the ice and then back off!!
And they are a little underexposed, try for 2/3 - 1 stop overexposure as the ice will throw off the internal meter.
Steve, I shot hockey for two years with an 85/1.8. It's a super lens. Did you try automatic WB? I know some people might gasp at that idea, but it's worth a try. If you're like me, you tend to wander to different spots around the rink, so doing custom WB might not always be practical, unless you can do this in advance and then note/change your settings as you go.
You might also want to play around with shooting in shutter priority if you're using your 85mm. You can probably freeze those little fellows at 1/200 to 1/400 with an ISO anywhere between 800 and 1600 depending on your rink's lighting. If your camera has auto ISO, see what that can do for you, too. Just take a whole lot of photos using different settings. When you're viewing them at home, you can determine which ones worked best.
As soon as you get the technical aspects established, you'll be amazed at how great your photos will look!
Thanks for the info. I will do the custom white balance off the ice. I shot 1/3 OE. I will try 2/3.
Thanks Myra. I might try AWB, just to see the results. I need to practice and use different settings. Who knows, I might get lucky.
