Spring Hockey Has Arrived!

My son began his spring hockey this week. Here are some "hockey card" type shots of a few individual players going through their paces at the tryout sessions. I tried to be careful on exposing in post processing with the ice...i.e. to not blow it out...see what you think. I forgot to leave EXIF intact on conversion so here are details:

Canon 40D, 70-200f2.8L IS (IS off), 1600 ISO, f2.8, 1/500 shutter, AI Servo, Center Point Focus, Evaluative Metering, RAW, Post Processed for exposure and very minimal (near default settings) NR and sharpening in Lightroom. Shot from the players benches (no glass in the way). And on most of these I actually used Auto White Balance as that seemed to give better results than the custom one (?).

Cheers!
Chris

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I got playoff tickets to the WIld for Wednesday!!! Sitting in Row 3. I am going to walkin with the 10-22 on the camera and hae the 70-200 hidden... somewhere...

I like 2 and 4 best.

Good luck Shadiow! That should be a tough series!

I love shooting hockey. I agree with your composition approach of catching the whole body, face looking up and ahead and puck visible.

Remember to shoot tight and watch the distracting backgrounds (#1 looks good, while #2 draws my eye to Gazzette #1 jersey).

Pull back on #7 or tighten on the goalie. #8 is screaming for action as I see the pucks behind the goalie, but he is not reacting to any shots.

The exposure looks good. You found the right sharpening mix - the masks are much better. What settings did you use for USM?

1/500 makes it nice and crisp.
Darcy

Darcy:

I use Adobe Lightroom and the settings I used on this set for NR and sharpening (which are similar to USM) are as follows

Noise Reduction:
Luminance 29 (Default is 0)
Color 29 (Default is 25)

Sharpening:
Amount 43 (default is 25)
Radius 1.0 (Default)
Detail 25 (Default)
Mask 0 (Default)

Great shots, Chris, and I think you finally have the right settings for your PP.

On another note, I'm wondering if you've tried shooting at 3200 ISO and, if so, what your opinions on the 40D's performance at 3200 ISO are for hockey pics? I'm planning on upgrading my XT to a 40D before next hockey season starts. What I've found, in the poorly lit rinks, is that 1600 ISO and some PP can produce satisfactory but not necessarily "good" image quality. High shutter speeds (1/500) clip the blacks, while slightly lower shutter speeds (1/400) reduce "crispness" and keeper rates, especially when I'm shooting CIS hockey. I'm hoping that the 40D's 3200 ISO option may resolve this issue providing the high ISO IQ remains equal to or better than the XT's 1600 ISO performance. Your thoughts/opinions on this would be appreciated.

Brik:

In short I have had great results with 3200 ISO on the 40D. I'll PM you more details but here are a couple from yesterday in a darker rink at 3200 ISO. Just a little bump in the amount of NR in Lightroom compared to the others.

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Chris,

Thanks for the response here as well as the PM. Those images, plus the ones you PM'd, look pretty darned good for 3200 ISO. If, as you say, they print well at 8x10, I'd be extremely happy.

As I noted, with the XT at 1600 ISO, I find myself shooting at 1/400 and f/2.8. It pushes the histogram to the right, but I still get clipping and loss of detail in the blacks. I don't mind that too much in gloves or pants but really hate it when black jerseys (as my son wore this year) become dark blobs with no definition or detail. I'm hoping that the 40D will allow me to shoot 3200 ISO when necessary, avoid the clipping in the blacks, and get higher shutter speeds to boot without introducing unacceptable noise levels at 8x10 and 11x14. Unfortunately, I can't field test a 40D to find out first-hand. Ideally, I'd have a 1DMkIII, but my 6/49 numbers never come up!

Again, thanks for the response!

Regards,

Dan

Brikwall wrote in post #5281351
Chris,

...but my 6/49 numbers never come up!

Dan

Yeah, nor my Lotto Super 7 numbers!