I don't shoot sports much at all and now I want to shoot hockey for my son's team-quite a challenge. The only sports I shoot is outdoor soccer but the light there is usually much better. These are 6/7 years old Novice and speed is not that fast.
My current gear:
Body 5D2/10D
lens: 50/1.4, 85/1.8, 200/2.8, 100-400L.
No plan to add any lens and I wonder what's my best configuration. Was thinking about bringing along both bodies and maybe 5D2/200 and 10D/50 ? I know a 70-200 would be nice but ...
I also read a bit on this board on general tips such as shot through the glass. Wonder where is the best position usually as I'm free to move about. I do have access to the spot where the hockey players sit and have an open view but it's general a bit far from net. Any other tips on how to get best photos are greatly appreciated.
Haha... not sure I'm anyone's man when it comes to sports photos, especially when a legend like Paul is around... but here's just a few thoughts that come to mind.
For the lenses, a 200/f2.8 on a full frame body would work real well for hockey from the corners or from the middle ice, and sure the 50 on a cropper can work from the corners too.
For shooting through the glass, my best results always come from using the lens hood, getting it right up against the glass, shooting as perpendicular as possible (hope I got that right - HS math was a long time ago for me... 90 degrees to the glass anyway), and bracing the hood with your non-trigger hand which can also help shield out light from getting between the lens glass and the plexi - that's where you lose your contrast and glare knocks down your colors. Some guys around here have come up with some pretty innovative rubber lens hood attachments and stuff, but I find you can get decent results with just being careful where you set up the lens. It also pays to scout out a nice clean chunk of glass to use.
If you're really lucky you can wiggle your way into a penalty box or end of the bench where you can shoot around the glass instead of through it. It does make you shoot differently as you're shooting the action coming OUT of the ends instead of INTO them.
For camera settings, keep in mind your equipment is going to want to protect the ice detail and render it grey. You will get best results exposing +1-1/3 to +1-2/3 over what the camera would, and by shooting with a custom WB. Remember those lights at amateur rinks cycle and it's tough to nail the WB. Make sure your sample WB shot takes into account a full swing of the cycling lights.
At 7 years old, you won't need a blazing fast shutter, but grab the ISO setting that lets you get the histogram over to the right edge and clipping the ice highlights (most common IQ mistake people make with hockey is underexposure, easily) but you'll still like to have a shutter of around 1/400th or so even at that age.
Shoot tight. The kids at that age are fantastic. These guys are just a BIT older, but you get the idea...
I actually shoot RAW for hockey FWIW, unless it's a big tournament where I'm just handing over CF cards and going shooting the next game... and in that case, I've checked out the WB settings on a laptop to make sure it's nailed as much as possible. There's just too much cycling of the lights and I generally tweak the images in post otherwise.
Perry, I shoot jpeg exclusively and at times add lights. DJ gave you great advice, make sure you push to +1 EV AT LEAST and remember the ice is not really white, but bright gray...
"Make sure your sample WB shot takes into account a full swing of the cycling lights"
What did you mean? Do you have a trick for setting white balance under cycling lights? Is there a way to capture the full cycle?
In my limited experience, I just shot raw as close as I could but then adjusted each keeper (often in a unique way) in post.
You can try to adjust for the cycling lights, but short of strobing the rink, you're still gonna get caught with some reddish (yellowish, greenish, bluish...) images.
A good way I've found to set WB is to set your camera to AV, adjust the ISO to give you a shutter speed 1/60s or less, shoot the dirty ice (non-Zamobonied) and take a burst of 5-10 images. Look for the one that is closest to white and use this as your CWB image. However, you'll still get nailed with color shift once your shutter speed exceeds the frequency at which the AC is cycling.
Of course, if you have a way of shooting a gray card (positioned horizontally so you get the impact of incident and reflected light) this is preferable to shooting the dirty ice.
Tim's comment that the ice (and boards) aren't really white is extremely helpful. When I was first shooting hockey, I thought I could use the ice or boards as my adjustment point in post processing in order to get the WB back in line. More times than not, though, when I did this the uniforms would look all funkadelic...so what I do now is find something white on the players (socks, helmets, jerseys, parts of logos, numbers, etc) and use this to sample for WB adjustment.
Oh, and try to calibrate your monitor periodically if you can. Makes a huge difference...which reminds me - - - I have to calibrate mine...
Thanks for the advice. I will do custom white balance and try both JPEG and RAW.
For exposure, I wonder how the color of jersey may affect my exposure, but for sure I will start with +1 EV and adapt.
Perry
tjk60 wrote:
Perry, I shoot jpeg exclusively and at times add lights. DJ gave you great advice, make sure you push to +1 EV AT LEAST and remember the ice is not really white, but bright gray...
Thanks for the tip on doing WB adjustment. Most of the time I shoot RAW just because the AWB of canon is not really that accurate. Will try CWB and see how it goes.
Perry
dmwierz wrote:
You can try to adjust for the cycling lights, but short of strobing the rink, you're still gonna get caught with some reddish (yellowish, greenish, bluish...) images.
A good way I've found to set WB is to set your camera to AV, adjust the ISO to give you a shutter speed 1/60s or less, shoot the dirty ice (non-Zamobonied) and take a burst of 5-10 images. Look for the one that is closest to white and use this as your CWB image. However, you'll still get nailed with color shift once your shutter speed exceeds the frequency at which the AC is cycling.
Of course, if you have a way of shooting a gray card (positioned horizontally so you get the impact of incident and reflected light) this is preferable to shooting the dirty ice.
Tim's comment that the ice (and boards) aren't really white is extremely helpful. When I was first shooting hockey, I thought I could use the ice or boards as my adjustment point in post processing in order to get the WB back in line. More times than not, though, when I did this the uniforms would look all funkadelic...so what I do now is find something white on the players (socks, helmets, jerseys, parts of logos, numbers, etc) and use this to sample for WB adjustment.
Oh, and try to calibrate your monitor periodically if you can. Makes a huge difference...which reminds me - - - I have to calibrate mine... ...Show more →
DJ Great advice!!
I also shoot allot of youth hockey but I cannot wait to try your setting recommendations the next time I go out. I had a question, I use a nikon D300. I usually the PRe white balance and take a shot to set the WB. Is this the same as the cannon custom WB
Thanks sam
Hi guys, I'm new here. My name Is Telly, and I'm from Montreal. I just bought a Nikon D700 and was looking through this topic as I want to shoot my son hockey games. I was wondering if someone could tell me how I would go about adjusting my custom white balance on the D700? I tried shooting the game tonight ths my exposure at +1.3 and I find I still have to go into photoshop to fix the contrast and levels on the the JPEG and in RAW.
Wow, you started a great thread, here! All this stuff has been discussed many times on this board, but these fine gentlemen have condensed it all into one thread for you!
This is interesting to me because I also shoot a lot of hockey and soccer. Since the soccer season just ended and I've been thrown back into hockey I've had to think back to the most important things (for me) to get good hockey results.
I shoot hockey with a Nikon D3 and 70-200 2.8 lens, mostly, but sometimes I'll go with my 300 f/4 if the lighting is good enough.
As I said, all of these posts are excellent, but the other night when I shot my first hockey of the season, I had to get back to basics:
(1) Setting a custom white balance is not optional. I think it is absolutely necessary for hockey. I also agree with the advice to use the dirty ice and to shoot the WB photo at a slow shutter speed to catch the cycling lights. If you nail the white balance, I think you can safely shoot jpeg instead of raw (but raw gives you the most leeway to fix things afterward).
(2) To start with, I shoot in AV mode, wide open at 2.8 or maybe 3.2, and as the guys have said, setting over-exposure EV at +1 1/3 works best for me in most circumstances. After a while, you'll get a feel for the shutter speeds the camera chooses in certain rinks and then you can just shoot in manual mode if the lighting is even enough, but even in my home rink, I usually stick with AV mode because there the lighting in the corners isn't quite as bright as the lighting at center ice.
(3) Try to get up over the glass if at all possible, but if you can't, DJ's advice is right on...try to avoid glare.
For me, it all usually boils down to how well I can execute these few steps. Here are a few of mine from last season:
DJ.............All your shots are amazing, but that last shot with the kid doing the Tiger Woods fist pump is precious! My son is playing his last high school season this year and I'm so sad I'm just beside myself. It seems like yesterday that he was just a mite lacing up the skates for the first time. What emotion the kids have at that age!
Perry, if you learn to shoot hockey well, you'll capture a lifetime of memories! Best of luck as you learn to shoot hockey. I'm grateful to all of the photographers at FM who have taught me so much. These guys are great.
Steve... I feel for you. The youth sports years just fly by don't they? You wish you could go back in time to not just when you played the games, but also when they were just starting out. For what it's worth, having a career of memories in sports shots is a lot cheaper than having more kids to do it all over again!
Telly... welcome to the forum. If you are asking how you set a custom WB on the D700, it's a matter of holding the WB button down and scrolling the rear wheel to PRE for preset, then selecting the preset slot D-0 to D-4 to the one you want with the front wheel. Then let go of the button, and press it back in again and hold until the D-0 (or whichever you picked) is flashing. Now you're ready to take a test sample. You can (1) use a grey card, (2) use an expodisc or similar, or (3) use something you want to be white like the ice. Find a spot on the ice where there's no lines or markings about 1/2 way through your intended shooting zone. Do this before the zamboni cleans the ice or it no longer looks "white". Slow up your shutter speed to around 1/5th or so and it's okay to use MF and keep the lens OOF - this avoids the lens "hunting" and you should still get a fairly accurate reading. After you hit the shutter, it should display "GOOD" on the top LCD letting you know it was able to set the WB. What I do then is restore my SS to what I'll be shooting at, and then take a bunch of test shots around the rink. Check out your RGB histogram to make sure that the highlights (which will usually be the ice highlights) are lining up very closely on the R, G and B channels, which lets you know that the ice is coming off white. It isn't a perfect science, and sometimes you have to do it a few times to get it nailed. Another option is to manually set the kelvin temp instead - anywhere from 3600 to 4000 is usually a decent starting point, and then again test shots and RGB histo check. I have been using an expodisc lately and seem to be doing pretty well with it. As Steve says though, you NEED to spend the time getting it right because the amount of post work you have to do - and your resulting IQ - depends on it a lot!
Armed with the tips I obtained here (from DJ and all others, thanks!), I went for my first hockey shot. 5D2 + 200/2.8, ISO3200 1.5-2 stop compensation, custom WB, most through glass as I always stand close to behind the net and shoot on coming forwards. It seems challenging to get the shots for defense action as the kids are usually all over the puck and it's difficult to isolate.
