How to get decent pics in an ice hockey rink

I'm pretty much a beginner camera buff. I am enjoying the new camera, but I'm sure I'm not taking advantage of its capabilities.

I have been trying to get some decent pictures inside a hockey rink. Everything turns out yellowish. Even when I try to adjust the white balance, the pics still come out off-color.

Also, there's really awful lighting in the rink area - so unless the player is very close and I can use a flash, they come out kind of dark.

Any tips to offer on how to improve the pictures?

I'm not averse to purchasing a new lens. Right now, I just have the one that came with the camera (18-55). I don't want an $1000 lens, but I could spend up to $400 or so.

And btw - these aren't for a major sports team. It's my kid's 16-year old hockey team and the pics are for the team's website.

shoot raw, using a white balance card (or even a white sheet of paper if you don't have a card) will help. But you need to take a shot of the card close to (or exactly) where you're going to take the rest of the pictures.

I shot a birthday party in an ice arena once, everything was green and yellow because they had mixed lighting. What a nightmare.

If you use flash, you may need a (green?) filter matched to fluorescent lights if they use those, but not using a flash is probably friendlier.

StorageLady,

You definitely need a good white balance setting, it sounds like you need to set it manually. There are several methods, but one that you might try is the ExpoDisk. This is a handy little device: you put it over your lens (put the camera on manual focus) and take a picture and use your camera's procedure to set that picture as the reference for a custom white balance.

Aside from that, I would suggest that: 1) you shoot in RAW to give yourself more latitude in adjusting your various image qualities and 2) put your camera's ISO setting to a high setting -- try 1600 and then 3) try setting your camera to aperture priority and to the lowest possible f-stop number, which will allow the fastest possible lens speed (with no flash).

If, after trying the above, you still get underexposed pictures, you will have to experiment with exposure compensation and flash. In this case, you really need an external flash to provide more "reach". I should add that you shoud not expose for the ice: the camera will interpret this as "this is a neutral color". If you are in an automatic exposure mode you will probably need to set your exposure compensation to plus one or more.

And, like others suggest, a good fast lens...if you have the bucks I'd say in this setting a 70-200L f2.8 would give you the best possible results!

Good luck!

Tony

Tony Long Photos on PBase

1) buy a gray card and use it to set custom white balance in the camera
2) shoot raw so you can easily adjust it post capture
3) buy a fast lens - an 85mm f/1.8 or a 100 mm f/2 -each is under $400 and is 8X more sensitive than the kit lens
8X is ridiculously better - think about it..
4) shoot at ISO1600 to get the shutter speeds up.

good luck!

i'de suggest a 100 f2 (length probably is better than speed, since i've never actually used the 85 wide open (alwyas at f2)). no real need for an expensive greycard, just get an ultra white sheet of paper then print a black, white, and grey pattern on it. iso1600 is a must, but so is raw, since the custom wb is likely not going to work perfectly, and you can do much more in post processing with a raw file

May I suggest that there's a good chance you may have to add some positive exposure compensation due to the white reflective ice. You'll have to experiment with how much and it will depend on your metering mode and what exactly is in the frame. I also second the idea on the 85 f1.8 or 100 f2.0. Either would be much better than the kit lens for most indoor arenas.

Whenever I shoot in an ice rink, I start with the exposure compensation at +2/3, or even a full stop. I'm usually at ISO 1250 or 1600 at F2.8, shooting without flash. The white of the ice and walls makes the scene appear much brighter than it actually is to your meter, so the +EC is crucial.

-Phil

Use the histogram to make sure you are exposing correctly. You want the big spike (which is the ice) to be all the way to the right. Like this;

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Thanks for the advice. I should have a chance to try it out this weekend or next. Have to get the zoom lens first though!