Bantam Hockey

[tadrscin]

I just wanted to post a couple of pics with the new Sigma 70-200. C & C welcome. I'll post more later, but I have to go watch the Seahawks.

http://home.comcast.net/~tadrscin//hockey6.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~tadrscin/hockey4.jpg

[tadrscin]

Here's some more.
http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey13.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey18.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey16.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey20.jpg

[DavidEB]

nice timing. I most like the hit (first one) and the fifth (storm player skating away with the puck). your captures show the heart of the game.

[tadrscin]

Thanks. For my exposure I metered off the ice and tried to get it as far to the right of the histogram as I could. At ISO 1600 and wide open it would've taken a shutter speed of 160 to put the ice all the way to the right. I didn't want to shoot that slow so I settled for 1/200 and 1/250. I started shooting from behind the glass which was pretty dirty and then decided to try from the top of the stands. At least now I didn't have the glass to deal with, but that did result in more DOF than I wanted. Normally I would've shot all RAW, but I decided to shoot about half RAW and half jpeg. I found it difficult to adjust the WB with the jpegs, especially the ones where the lights were cycling and gave the pics a pinkish tint. Any tips would be appreciated.

[jmitch]

Shoot a pic of the ice or grey card before game and make sure it is properly exposed, then use this as the custom white balance. This will help, also you might want to try shooting in M mode, I know this helped my shots a bunch. By the looks of your shots you could probably have dropped the ISO to 800 or upped the shutter speed a couple of stops. Keep on posting so we can see.

[Alan Dye]

Well Done!!

Take the advice and shoot a CWB off the ice before the game. Should help "Balance" things out.

[tadrscin]

Shoot a pic of the ice or grey card before game and make sure it is properly exposed, then use this as the custom white balance. This will help, also you might want to try shooting in M mode, I know this helped my shots a bunch. By the looks of your shots you could probably have dropped the ISO to 800 or upped the shutter speed a couple of stops. Keep on posting so we can see.

Yeah I should've done that, but I switched to jpegs about halfway through because I was running out of room on my 2nd card. Plus I wanted to see how much better the burst rate is with jpegs. I do shoot a reference shot of a grey card for setting my WB in ACR for shooting RAW. I do shoot manual, but I don't see how I could drop the ISO or up the shutter speed. To me they looked about 2/3 of a stop underexposed when I got them out of the camera. At least on my monitor that is. Do they look overly bright to anyone else? The histogram in ACR, as well as in the camera, showed the ice about 2/3 of a stop from the right. I did redo some of them as they seemed to be bit flat so I'll have to get them posted.

Well Done!!

Take the advice and shoot a CWB off the ice before the game. Should help "Balance" things out.

I'll do that the next time I shoot jpegs, but it's back to RAW for now. Does that help with the shots that get the pinkish tint from the lights cycling?

[tadrscin]

Here's one redone and a few more.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey22-2.jpg
http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey15.jpg
http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey24.jpg
http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey25.jpg
http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey26.jpg
http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey27.jpg
http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/hockey28.jpg

[jmitch]

Yeah I should've done that, but I switched to jpegs about halfway through because I was running out of room on my 2nd card. Plus I wanted to see how much better the burst rate is with jpegs. I do shoot a reference shot of a grey card for setting my WB in ACR for shooting RAW. I do shoot manual, but I don't see how I could drop the ISO or up the shutter speed. To me they looked about 2/3 of a stop underexposed when I got them out of the camera. At least on my monitor that is. Do they look overly bright to anyone else? The histogram in ACR, as well as in the camera, showed the ice about 2/3 of a stop from the right. I did redo some of them as they seemed to be bit flat so I'll have to get them posted.



I'll do that the next time I shoot jpegs, bit it's back to RAW for now. Does that help with the shots that get the pinkish tint from the lights cycling?

I guess I was going by the fact that it looked like the ice in some photos was blown out, so it looked over exposed. When shooting the photo of the ice for w/b you shouldn't need a shutter speed of 160 to get a proper exposure with f2.8, it will more likely need to be 400-500, unless lighting is real bad. Even in my arenas around here when I properly expose with f4 the histogram is not all the way to the right. This will allow you to bump the shutter speed up for stopping the action. I checked out the newer photos you posted, those look much better, good action your catching.

[tadrscin]

I guess I was going by the fact that it looked like the ice in some photos was blown out, so it looked over exposed. When shooting the photo of the ice for w/b you shouldn't need a shutter speed of 160 to get a proper exposure with f2.8, it will more likely need to be 400-500, unless lighting is real bad. Even in my arenas around here when I properly expose with f4 the histogram is not all the way to the right. This will allow you to bump the shutter speed up for stopping the action. I checked out the newer photos you posted, those look much better, good action your catching.

Well I have noticed that the ice in many of my shots looks brighter than what I see from others, but the players look good to me, especially the skin tones. When I look at the photos in PS, very few of the highlights are actually blown out, they're just very bright. The ones I shot RAW I had to increase the exposure in ACR about 2/3 of a stop to get the players right. If I remember what I read about setting the exposure, you want to meter off the ice and then set your exposure so the the histogram shows the ice at the far right. Is that what you I shold be doing? When I do that, should I be zoomed all the way in and meter a smaller area of ice, or all the way out and meter a larger area.
For the custom WB shot, would I just shoot the ice as metered so that it ends up grey? I've pretty much decided to stick with shooting RAW, but I'd like to make sure I can shoot jpegs correctly too. I think I'll post a pic of the back of my camera showing my shot of the ice with the histogram and a few other shots like that, maybe that will help. I don't know how bad the lighting is around here compared to other places, but it doesn't seem too good here. Of course hockey is not that big of a sport in Seattle. I'm not even a hockey fan and I don't really understand the game. I just like the challenge of shooting it.

[jmitch]

Yes your right, when you shoot a pic of the ice it should be on the right of the histogram, but prob. not all the way, and it will be a narrow spike. I use to zoom it out just enough so that the only thing in the frame is the ice, but now I use a grey card to take my w/b pic from. The lighting is pretty bad where I shoot, I'm using my XTi with 70-300 and have to use ISO 1600 and f4 and can usually only get 1/200 at most arenas, sometimes 1/250.

[tadrscin]

Okay here's a pic of the histogram when I metered off the ice and one of the shot of the goalie looking for the puck. Based on this I should've shot at 1/160 to get the ice right, but I didn't want to shoot that slow. Do you think 1/200 would've been ok? I though I shot some at 1/200, but I can't find any so I guess I didn't.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/histogram1.jpghttp://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/histogram2.jpg

[DavidEB]

tadrscin --

yuch. your rink is as bad as the worst I shoot in. a great argument for ISO3200. As far as I understand it, though, ISO 3200 is just 1600 with software shifting the histogram to the right, so you should be able to get the same effect shooting in RAW, at ISO1600, and move the histogram over yourself in post-processing. If you pull the histogram 1 stop to the right, that should let you shoot at 1/320 to freeze action.

hockey is tough to shoot -- for the past 2 years it's been the major driver of my gear upgrades.

good luck.

[tadrscin]

tadrscin --

yuch. your rink is as bad as the worst I shoot in. a great argument for ISO3200. As far as I understand it, though, ISO 3200 is just 1600 with software shifting the histogram to the right, so you should be able to get the same effect shooting in RAW, at ISO1600, and move the histogram over yourself in post-processing. If you pull the histogram 1 stop to the right, that should let you shoot at 1/320 to freeze action.

hockey is tough to shoot -- for the past 2 years it's been the major driver of my gear upgrades.

good luck.

Yeah the lighting is pretty bad. That's a fairly new arena so I thought it would've been better. I have one more I want to try, but I doubt it's any better. I may try and shoot a game this weekend.

That's pretty much what I did. Here's the histogram of the goalie photo from PS.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q63/tadrscin/Hockey/histogram3.jpg

Although the ice does seem pretty bright to me, according to PS, very few highlights are blown out so I figured that was good.

I should've been more specific about the first histogram though. I shot one as metered by the camera which of course put the ice in the middle. Then I adjusted the shutter to 1/250 to see how far to the right that put the ice since that was as slow as I wanted to shoot.


Do you think that shooting RAW (the goalie shots was one I did shoot in RAW) I could've gotten away with 1/320? I didn't think to try so I will next time, but I would've thought that would be underexposing too much. When you said pull the histogram 1 stop to the right, do you mean 1 stop from the middle? I forget what the shutter speed was as metered, but I'm guessing it was either 1/500 or 1/400.

[DavidEB]

to make up for not having 3200 on the XT, shoot RAW, set at 1600. Determine your exposure on the histogram, then dial in 1 stop less exposure on the shutter speed (that is, if you decide you need ISO1600 f2.8 1/160, shoot at 1/320). Your ice bump in the histogram will be to the left.

when you convert the RAW file, adjust the exposure slider to bring the histogram back to something like your post above.

It's just like shooting on ASA-pushed film in the old days. Pretend you're on 3200 even though you're really on 1600, and make it up in post-processing.

Either that, or beg/borrow/steal a 135 f2.

[tadrscin]

OK, got it. Ah the good old days. I never shot color back then, but I pushed B&W to 1600 and even 3200 before they came out with the faster film At least now we can do something about the grain/noise. If I can squeeze in a game this weekend I'll give that a try.

Don't make me drool over another lens. I do have the 85 1.8 on my wish list which I'll get in March along with two other zoom lenses. I actually had a 135 f2 for my Canon F1 back in the day. That was a sweet lens. Too bad I can't justify a grand for a single lens these days. This is just hobby for me afterall. I did spend $700 for the 70-200 though and it was worth every penny too.