First time... Pee Wee A Hockey

[srxrocket]

These shots where taken with:
400D, Canon 70-200mm L USM lens and with a Monopod

Camera settings:
f/2.8
1/400
ISO 800

I played with ISO 1600 and the picture did not look good so I stuck with 800 and it's dark so I don't know what to do now. Some photo's looked like they where out of focus a little so I will have to work on that next also.
Thanks

CC.. please!!

[Brad999]

There are a couple of pros here that post their NHL images and advice. I would follow them. Here is a link to some sports podcasts from one of them

http://www.sportsphotographycast.com (http://www.sportsphotographycast.com/)


Search on their names. One is muls and the other is dmwierz.

[gcppix]

I've learned from the guys here...this is how I shoot hockey:
-custom white balance
-shoot at your highest ISO - expansion to 3200 ISO (not sure if the 400D does)
-shoot at 1/500 - 1/600 (I do anyway)
-shoot RAW - so you can pp the picture after...especially the nasty colour variance in the rink (pinkish/reddish colour) easier to pp than JPEG.
-oh and shoot the players faces not the back of their heads

I hope that helps. I'm sure someone else will add something I have forgotten. I know after shooting a bunch of hockey I'm not as frustrated as when I started. I took the experienced/pro photograpers advise and I've learned so much! Take tons of pictures!

: )Gen

[Darsk47]

couple other thoughts

- get low, an excellent perspective for hockey is your 200mm about an inch above the boards

- work your way into the penalty box - many times there no glass or sometimes a chair you can use to get over the glass; maybe you can get on the bench depending on its size and the rules of the league/building you're in

- shoot tight - there a lot of dead space in the two images you posted ; if not crop tight; # 2 would be a better shot low and pulled in - you have the trifecta in this one face-puck-net work it to your advantage

- shoot lots and read lots on here - on every sport - many of the same guidelines apply to a wide variety of sport - the Sports regulars are a great bunch and boast some top-notch shooters for every game/contest there is going
Cheers

[srxrocket]

Thanks guys!!

My camera only goes to ISO 1600

I don't know much about RAW but it looks like I will have to do some reading

The glass was so bad that you could hardly see through it so that's why they are high., I was shooting over the glass from the stands. When I got to the rink I walked a around and I was about to put my camera away but I figured I would just try it.

This one is through the glass of my son.

[Darsk47]

Turn on your Image Editing OK and I'll show you a quick PP I did on the shot of your son.

[muls]

Set a custom white balance, you can use the ice surface to do so, it will make a tremendous difference.

Shoot tighter, and makes sure your horizons are straight.

1/500th is usually pretty good for youth hockey, but I would suggest raising the iso, you can always take a bit of noise out later.

I mainly shoot NHL hockey, where I have much better lighting, but I do shoot my son's youth games. He was in Lake Placid this past week for the Can/Am Tournament. Most photos were shot at iso 1250 or 1600.

Here are a few samples, you'll notice what I mean by shooting tighter...

http://www.sportsshooter.com/muls

Ed

[cstewart]

SRX:

HERE is my latest thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=470628) with Pee Wee hockey images shot at 1600 ISO. I post this if only to show that good images are possible at that ISO and without professional gear and lighting, but post processing is the key!.

Gcpix and Darsk above hit on many of the key points. I shoot in Manual mode, RAW, ISO 1/400 or 1/500, ISO 1600 or 3200 depending on light, aperature of f2.8 and when light permits 3.2 or 3.5 to get a touch more depth of field. Use a custom white balance off the ice. Use AI Servo mode for autofocus. Evaluative metering or partial metering will do (I usually use evaluative). Even with that, I still need to bump up the exposure and usually tweak a few other settings in post processing, somtimes including slight tweaks to WB if the lighting was really horrid. I use Lightroom and rarely do I need to do anything in Photoshop. My last set of photos has minimal noise reduction applied to them.

Most importantly, keep shooting and learning!

Cheers!

Chris

[cstewart]

Also, I assume your lens is the non IS version since you didn't list it, but if it has IS, turn it OFF as it won't help much in this situation.

[srxrocket]

Muls:
I know how to set a custom white balance because I tried shooting into a coffee filter and setting that but it didn't look right. So you just shoot a picture of the ice and use that?
Thanks for your help and very nice pictures!! I would be happy if mine where have that good!

CStewart:
This Saturday at my sons game I will try ISO 1600. I have to learn more about Raw because I don't know the first thing about it. Yes my lens is NON IS.
Thanks ... and nice pics.

My son had a three day tournament last Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I took about 1100 shots and maybe 50 or so that I was happy with but after the imput from you guys they do need to be tighter, camera looks a little cocked and they are dark. I have PS CS3 and I know how to lighten up the picture but I feel as if I need to take a better picture first. Thanks for the imput... Jeff

[Darsk47]

really quick PP work on this. Straightened, cropped, level bump on highlights, lightened shadows, colour cast removed, +3 saturation, light sharpening.
It should be played with a bit longer as the shadow removal took some contrast out of his pants.

You can see his eyes now.

[dmwierz]

know how to set a custom white balance because I tried shooting into a coffee filter and setting that but it didn't look right. So you just shoot a picture of the ice and use that?

I won't speak for Ed, but when I shoot a CWB for hockey, I either shoot a gray card, or when this isn't possible, I shoot an image of dirty ice (not freshly Zamboni'ed).

I agree to bump your ISO up to 1600. Your images need a little more light.

Shooting from as high as you did with a 200mm is a tough challenge. From up there, I'd normally use at least a 300. As for the glass being dirty, as long as it's not permanently ruined, as in too many puck scuffs or scratched glass, you can usually clean it with Windex (either bring your own, or sometimes you can borrow glass cleaner from the rink maintenance guys). Plus, if you shoot at a large enough aperture, many of the glass imperfections will go away. If shooting TTG (through the glass), be sure to take your CWB image through the glass. As your image of your son shows, the glass adds its own color to the shots.

Dennis

[srxrocket]

Darsk47:
I see with some work you can make it nice. That was my first time shooting youth hockey with a DSLR camera. I think I just have it stuck in my head that I should be able to take pictures with out doing any editing. Maybe I'm just dreaming thinking that.... low lighting, scratched glass! I know I have to be patient and keep taking pictures because it's not easy doing this. Saturday is my son's next game so I will try ISO 1600 and I will try to find a gray card for a CWB.
Thanks for all the input!!
Jeff

[dmwierz]

Darsk47:
I see with some work you can make it nice. That was my first time shooting youth hockey with a DSLR camera. I think I just have it stuck in my head that I should be able to take pictures with out doing any editing. Maybe I'm just dreaming thinking that.... low lighting, scratched glass! I know I have to be patient and keep taking pictures because it's not easy doing this. Saturday is my son's next game so I will try ISO 1600 and I will try to find a gray card for a CWB.
Thanks for all the input!!
Jeff


Jeff,

When shooting indoors under ambient light, you'll inevitably have to do some post processing on a goodly percentage of your images. The color shifts you'll get from the mains-powered lighting alone can be a real challenge.

The only way I have found to minimize post processing is to use flash or strobes. When doing this, my "keeper" rate increases to around 80%. I'm a big fan of strobing indoor sports, but you need to do it correctly otherwise your images may turn out looking "un-natural".

[srxrocket]

Ya I can see that now ... But in my case I still have room for improvement. I use Evaluative Metering mode, that's fine right?

[cstewart]

I use evaluative most of the time and it seems to work fine. I've tried partial metering mode (which in 40D manual is "effective when background is much brighter than subject" ) but seem to get better results with evaluative.

[d44]

srxrocket -

with hockey pictures you really have to do the post-processing -

here are two takes on your picture that I did in lightroom in about 30 seconds -

custom white balance adjustment off the white border on the chest logo, auto levels, crop and straighten horizon.

I have developed a set of presets for most of my common hockey picture conditions - a "hockey standard" that boosts the presence, medium sharpening and medium noise reduction, and a set of "through the glass" presets that boost the presence even more, depending on the glass' effect.

Picture 1 is my hockey standard, white balance, levels and crop;

Picture 2 is my light "through the glass" adjustment.

After that, I adjust as needed. Here, I am just showing you two different ways of approaching your photo -

At the lighting levels and conditions we shoot in kids' hockey, the PP is an important step.

Good luck and keep shooting -
Walt

[srxrocket]

Thank you .. This is something I'm going to have to work on.
Jeff

[srxrocket]

OK .. first off thanks for all the help!!

I shot another game this morning with the ice as my CWB and ISO 800 and 1600. I had my ISO set at 800 and the exposure level indicator was two lines over ''0'' saying the photo's where going to be over exposed and they looked good on the LCD. So I shot some photo's in ISO 800 and 1600 and when I got home the 1600 one's looked better so you guys where right 1600 was the way to go!! I just cropped two of them and the other is the original.

Next game I'm going to try:
f/2.8
CWB: Ice
SS: 1/500
ISO: 1600

You can see the differance between 800 and 1600
Thanks!!

[cstewart]

They still look a little dark to me. I find that even when I am shooting 1600 ISO or 3200 ISO in our crappily lit minor hockey rinks, I still need to bump up the exposure in Lightroom when post processing to get the photos to where I want them to be. As an example, the first photo below was shot at 3200 ISO and in Lightroom my Exposure setting was +1.43. The second photo was shot at 1600 ISO and the Exposure value was bumped to +1.71. Hopefully they show brighter on your monitor than your images and not too bright though.

1. ISO 3200 1/400 f2.8 LR Exposure +1.41
http://www.cjscons.com/pwabraves/mar7/content/bin/images/large/IMG_1108.jpg

2. ISO 1600 1/500 f3.2 LR Exposure +1.71
http://www.cjscons.com/pee_wee_b/mar15/content/bin/images/large/IMG_2372.jpg

[srxrocket]

Ya your right I have been playing with Adobe Lightroom and I bumped them up to around +.110 and they look much better. The best thing was the CWB of the ice it worked great! I have a question for ya ... I have a hard time deciding what WB to use at given time and how to decide how much ISO to use with the flash.
Jeff

[cstewart]

Jeff:

Once I have established my CWB at start of game, I just use that for the whole game unless I move to behind glass (or from behind glass to above glass) in which case I'll shoot a new CWB. I rarely (if ever) need to use the eyedropper for a CWB in post processing.

As to flash, I have never used flash so I can't comment but there are many others here who have used it for hockey and could probably help you there.

[srxrocket]

Oh .. sorry I'm talking about like today I took some pictures of my daughter looking for easter eggs in the house when I had to use the flash due to low lighting. How do you determine what ISO to use and what WB. What I have been doing is when ever I shoot with the flash I use the flash WB and stay around 200/400 on the ISO and the pictures look OK.

I'm good for now with hockey until I can shoot some more games next week