SX110IS Sports Photography (hockey)

[JButts]

Greetings!

I recently purchased the SX110IS and am wondering if anyone could advise me on the proper way to shoot ice hockey images. I tried recently shooting in the camera's P mode at 1600ISO and came up with a lot of very noisy images. Likewise when shooting at 3200ISO.

I'm just sort of getting into photography a little bit, so any guidance would be much appreciated!

[LowriderS10]

put it on manual and aperture priority and set your aperture (aka f-stop) at the lowest possible number....this will help you set your shutter speed faster and your ISO lower. (to avoid blurring in the first case, and to avoid grainy-ness in the second).

[BSTAFFOR]

I just posted a thread on my settings - I am learning as well - but maybe they will help you in some way...

Please see the thread from me labelled Hockey Photography.

Good luck!

[LowriderS10]

link? :)

[JButts]

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=648678&highlight=hockey+photography

There's his link.

Just to clarify... my camera is more or less a high-end point and shoot I believe, not really sure how that falls on the scale. Will the settings be the same?

I'm not even sure how to shoot in Manual and give aperture priority, just know that I have M P Tv and Av modes (I normally just shoot in P, still kind of figuring out the rest). ISO 3200 is under a different mode altogether.

Thanks for input thus far, won't get a chance to give it a try until tomorrow night!

[LowriderS10]

my bad, that was a typo on my part...I should have said manual OR aperture priority (M and Av respectively)

I'm guessing your pics are on the rinkrats page? Do you have bigger pics? those are way too small to really tell what's going on/what's going right/what's going wrong...

[kini]

I think you're not going to get what you want out of that camera. Slow lens, small noisy sensor = soft, blurry and noisy images.

Most hockey arenas (other than pro) are dark. Even with a DSLR and an expensive, fast lens you would struggle to get enough shutter speed even at ISO 1600 or 3200.

Basically it's the wrong tool for the job.
Gene

[undcover]

I agree with kini. I first started shooting sports with a Powershot S2 experimenting with M, TV and AV modes. I'd get a few decent shots every once in a while, but the keeper rate was extremely low (even though I was shooting outdoor sports in sunny weather). Indoor shooting is a whole other monster best handled by a DSLR and fast lens. The increased fps would help you out too.

[JButts]

Thanks for your feedback. What about shooting with an EOS 300D? My office owns one that they would let me use. I've been messing around with it a bit today. Would I have much better luck with it instead?

[Jon]

Depends on what lenses it has. It has better high ISO performance, faster AF and less shutter lag, so you're more likely to catch the moment than "just missed it". But you'll need a longer lens than the "kit" 18-55 lens and preferably something that's around f/2.8 or faster.

[JButts]

I posted some pictures on flickr that I took tonight. Link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31041902@N08/.

I ended up shooting in AV mode for most of the game, still don't quite have the hang of the 300D. I shot ~100 images, and was able to pull 12 that are marginal at best even after adjustments.

Open for comments/critique, please!

[Jon]

On the 300D, don't be afraid to use the higher ISO settings (well, on any camera, really) if you need them. It's generally better to have a noisy shot that's crisp than a noise-free blur. I don't need to tell you a longer lens would have helped; concentrating on closer-in action can compensate some for that. And take a custom white balance off the ice before the game starts.

[JButts]

I could have cranked up the shutter speed too, I think. The camera could go up to 4000, I think I was shooting between 500-1000. With such a small review screen though, how can you actually tell if the images that you are shooting are turning out? I was hoping I'd done okay until I finally uploaded them and realized differently.

[Jon]

You were between 1/50 and 1/80 sec. on most of those at ISO 1600 (which is where the 300D tops out); only way you could have gone higher and still gotten the exposure as good as you did (you nailed that pretty much) was with a faster lens. Don't try to judge anything except the overall composition from any camera's LCD though. Wait til you're on your computer to pixel-peep. Just use the LCD to look at the histogram or judge overall composition.