Hockey, flash, and equipment shortcomings

I'm going to a friends roller hockey game and wanted to get some tips on how I should set up. It's a local rec league so I will have access to both the player bench, possibly the scorer's bench, and can walk fully around the rink. There is a 2nd floor catwalk available as well, but he rink has the regular glass, and a netting above it that would obstruct view from those levels. Lighting is okay, though I say that as a player and not someone who's thought about taking photos there before.

I have a T1i, sigma 30mm 1.4, sigma 18-250 3.5-6.3, and a 430ex that I have radio triggers for.

My thought is to setup the flash on a tripod in the player bench and move around the rink with the superzoom. I can have someone point the flash in the direction of the action as it moves. I'm actually thinking 1/200 would be sufficient to freeze the motion, though if I get a little bit it may be okay.

The other alternative is to bounce the flash straight up, but I dont know how that will perform as the ceiling is quite high.

Am I going to be disappointed?

Well ... with the T2i, and 480ex on radio slave, you actually have TWO flashes, right?
You're on the right track getting the 480 off the camera on it's own stand.

You could probably get the most dramatic look by setting yourself up behind (but off to one side of) a goal. Set the 480ex off to the side of you, closer to the corner of the rink so that it's flashing across your field of view ... or maybe even around the corner between the blue-line and goal line to create a rim-light effect on the players. Don't worry about shooting anything further than the blue line. Use your built-in flash as fill light.

1/200 shouldn't matter too much since you're hoping to get most of your light from the flashes, so they'll freeze the action for you. Setup for rear curtain on the strobes so that if you do get motion blur from the rink lights, it will trail behind the action of bright flash hit.

Might work.

Unfortunately the yongnuo RF-602 trigger on my 500d (t1i) doesn't work with rear curtain sync. I think this is one of the tradeoffs you get when buying a $40 radio trigger (it's super reliable though, just missing some features).

I'm thinking that the on camera flash as fill would be no good due to the reflection from the glass. That's why I was planning on having the 480 set up in the player bench. The problem is at that location the angle of light will likely be behind any subjects since I plan to set up around the low face off dot.

If I try this without flashes, I'm almost positive that my 3.5-6.3 wont be fast enough. The T1i ISO limits seem to be 800 or 1600. Beyond that and the noise is terrible.

bone11 wrote in post #12185666
I'm thinking that the on camera flash as fill would be no good due to the reflection from the glass.

Can you afford to get a rubber lens hood?

Just screw that onto the end of your lens and press it up to the glass when shooting and the on-board flash shouldn't bounce into your lens.

bone11 wrote in post #12185666
Unfortunately the yongnuo RF-602 trigger on my 500d (t1i) doesn't work with rear curtain sync. I think this is one of the tradeoffs you get when buying a $40 radio trigger (it's super reliable though, just missing some features).

I'm thinking that the on camera flash as fill would be no good due to the reflection from the glass. That's why I was planning on having the 480 set up in the player bench. The problem is at that location the angle of light will likely be behind any subjects since I plan to set up around the low face off dot.

If I try this without flashes, I'm almost positive that my 3.5-6.3 wont be fast enough. The T1i ISO limits seem to be 800 or 1600. Beyond that and the noise is terrible.

Yes it is. This is ultimately why I upgraded to the 60D. I enjoy shooting hockey (ice) and my T1i just wasn't cutting it. Though you may have better luck then I did since you're considering using off camera flash. I didn't have the $$ at the time and thus I didn't have the equipment. I did invest in a 200L 2.8, which is what saved me.

You may find that your Sigma 18-250 at f3.5 may work fine, as long as you're not standing on top the action.

Regarding the rubber lens hood suggestion from Nick. That's a good suggestion which I'll look into as well. In the past I have just put my lens hood on, and kept the hood pressed against the glass. This way you are almost assured to get a straight shot through the glass which helps eliminate any sort of distortion the glass may give to your subjects.

Finally, like me you've played the game. Anticipate where the play is going or whats going to happen. For example, if there is a power play and the puck moves back to the point man and the forward is right on him. Two things are probably going to happen. The D-man is going to toss the back into the corner OR make a nice pass across to his partner which could result in a sweet one timer shot. When the puck comes back to one D-man, I move my focus to the other D-man and wait. This was shot with my T1i, all I did was wait for it to happen.

What I thought about over the weekend was to setup the flash on a tripod on the above catwalk pointing down towards one side of the rink. It would be about 75 feet away, but would also be elevated above the glass probably 25 feet off the ground and probably be able to spread over the bottom 1/3 of the rink. Never tried it from that distance so I have no idea if that will work.

I hope this would provide enough light, combined with 1600 ISO, I should get some usable shots.

Unfortunately the 18-250 at 250mm has a max of f/6.3.

I did get the chance to shoot the game. What it told me was I need a fast, longer lens.

It was my buddy's game, so I stayed at the opponents' end of the rink, trying to get more offensive type shots. The catwalk that I put the flash on happened to be on their side of the rink for periods 1 and 3, so I only got effective use of it for one period. During the third I switched to the 30mm and was hoping to rely on cropping and no flash.

This isn't a great shot, but kind of shows how the flash was set up: