Champions On Ice, Washington D.C.

These shots were from Champions On Ice, on April 14, 2007 at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. Their web site stated that no lens longer than 70mm would be permitted. I took my 85mm f/2.8. I was concerned until I looked three rows ahead of me and saw a guy with a long telephoto. We had fifth row seats and the show was great. My 13 year old daughter is the figure skater and fan, but I recoginized a lot of names, and am still learning.

These were shot with the 85mm at iso 1600. #1, Sasha Cohen, was 1/800 f/2.5, #2, Kimmie Mizner was 1/800 f/2.2. I decided on Manual setting, judging from some early shots as tests. All are cropped a bit, processed in Photoshop, then processed with Neat Image. This is the first time I used Neat Image. C/C welcomed. (I also took a few at iso 800.)

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Lovely shots... The very best of skaters to capture...

My venue has similar restrictions...

Here are two more. One of Sasha Cohen jumping. I don't know the couple.

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Sasha has great height and extension on her jump... Got any more photos?

They do jump very high, don't they? Wow. I have never attended a sports event with my gear while I sat in the audience. I am going to try to get into some now that I have the right gear. The 85 is a gem. I love that lens.

Great shots, BTW. Without flash is hard.

Great captures nice timing at framing (except crowd in 1)
Nice set.

Here are two more of Sasha.

An interesting change in her normally cute, composed face on the first shot.

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Lovely shots, and it's a style of event I'd love to go along to.

I hope you don't mind that I've had a quick play with your images. All I've done is used the Photoshop Elements 4.0 "Adjust colour for skin tones" command. But the results are (to me) rather pleasant.

(Aside: I know that Elements is regarded as a poor man's version of Photoshop - but this command, which isn't in CS2 - is a bloomin' useful one. Is it in CS3?)

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Sorry, I screwed up the last posting. Here's another edit, using the same method plus some unsharp mask for local contrast

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With the different colored lighting, I sometimes feel that I should not go for true flesh tones, but to let the lighting do what it was meant to do. I guess that would be a question to the professionals...how far do you go from captured image lighting to an attempt to get a true flesh tone?

Thanks All.

It's a question that has often been debated here. My own preference is a more natural look,to make the performers look "good" (hey, I'm a performer after all!). Others prefer to retain more what the lighting designer did.

Like most everything else in photography, there's probably no 100% "right" or "wrong"

regards,
/alan

I find that stage lighting enhances general appearances of the performance, but not necessarily of the individual performer...

The red color lighting, I try to reduce in Photoshop by adjusting the temperature slider and the tint... I also give it a shot with Auto Levels, and Auto Color...Beneath the red light, often I find very good detail of the face...but it's not always there...

Personally, I would consider trimming the background more and adjusting the tilt to even the ice surface... If you wish, I'd give it a try on the 2nd image in post #7...

Thanks for the info, John. If you'd like to change any of the images, go right ahead. I"m here to improve.

Mount Airy Ed wrote in post #3090653
Thanks for the info, John. If you'd like to change any of the images, go right ahead. I"m here to improve.

Later today I'll post a version of the jump...

(I just got back with a some pics from the local state park, and will need a bit of time to download and sort)

EDIT: gave it a try and wasn't able to trim and enlarge the image without losing most detail... Also, when leveled to the rink ice level kick board lights, the skater is slightly tilted...which only means that the lights are on the curve of the rink... so I give up on this edit... Sorry Ed... Couldn't help at all this time...

Have you any more pics of the action on ice?

A touch soft and lots of slanting horizons but I like 'em! Making the horizons level will give the "correct" tilt to the skater and a better sense of the energy on the ice. Did you sharpen them after resizing? Great work given your equipment.