First Hockey of Season (New Camera, New Lens Test)

[cstewart]

I have a new 50D and a new EF 135 f2.0L to try for hockey this season, hoping to get a bit more light than f2.8 with the lens. Tried them out the other night. Great lens but I kept trying to turn the focus ring to zoom in and out!! Certainly takes some getting used to. The 2.0 or 2.2 aperture is also not very forgiving if you do not nail focus. In any case, here are some examples. All at 1600 ISO and shot from penalty box (no glass). Please ignore incorrect watermark and embedded captions (I forgot to edit metadata before converting), these are from Wednesday night!!

1.
http://www.cjscons.com/smha/sep2/photos/IMG_3248.jpg

2.
http://www.cjscons.com/smha/sep2/photos/IMG_3237.jpg

3.
http://www.cjscons.com/smha/sep2/photos/IMG_3349.jpg

4.
http://www.cjscons.com/smha/sep2/photos/IMG_3277.jpg

5.
http://www.cjscons.com/smha/sep2/photos/IMG_3359.jpg

6.
http://www.cjscons.com/smha/sep2/photos/IMG_3215.jpg

7.
http://www.cjscons.com/smha/sep2/photos/IMG_3270.jpg

8.
http://www.cjscons.com/smha/sep2/photos/IMG_3282.jpg

[Onyxdragun]

At ISO1600 what sort of shutter speeds were you getting?

Now I dont know the lightning at your arena, but where I was shooting I could get away with ISO800 on my XSi with the 70-200mm f2.8L IS.

The whites on yours seem quite bright

[cstewart]

ISO 1600 was giving me about 1/500 shutter. EXIF is embedded. Our rink lighting generally is poor. These were on our "bright" rink which also had 10 lights burnt out so lighting was inconsistent. On our second rink I pretty much have to start at 3200 ISO.

As to whites, I have dialed the ice back a bit in most with the gradient filter tool in Lightroom. Some of the boards are still a bit hot, but I like to expose for faces and jerseys and let the rest fall where they may.