Finally some Hockey - Jr "B"

I will be shooting a lot of our Junior "B" team this season. Here are a few from the first game I was at. Not too happy in general as I will need to deal with 3200 ISO and noisy images all season as they play on our dark rink. I also think I blew out the whites a bit too much in post on these. Let me know what you think. All shot with 50D and 70-200f2.8L

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Did you use noise reduction software?

Good Captures! Colors seem OK on my monitor. Did you do any PP on these? At 3200 ISO, The noise is noticeable. A little Noiseware would clean these up nice!!

Colour looks good on my monitor, too. No blown highlights. Noise does seem a little excessive - more than I get with my 40D. Were you underexposing than boosting in post?

Otherwise, good shots!

Brikwall wrote in post #8939168
Colour looks good on my monitor, too. No blown highlights. Noise does seem a little excessive - more than I get with my 40D. Were you underexposing than boosting in post?

Otherwise, good shots!

Brik and others:

Yes, to the above question. I used NR in Lightroom only (no other NR software) which usually does an OK job. I think next game I will go back to my 40D to see any differences in noise. I thought 50D would handle it better but maybe not? Anyone have 50D and use the in camera NR settings (I have them disabled but shoot RAW so does it matter?)

I'll also see if I can get away with 2000 or 2500 ISO for next game with the 50D.

Cheers!

Chris

Not sure that switching back to the 40D will solve the problem. Underexposing and boosting in post always seems to add more noise than shooting at a higher native ISO to begin with (if available). Or at least that's been my experience with both the XT and the 40D. I found I could sometimes get away with 1/2 or 3/4 stops but once I hit a full stop things seemed to go downhill pretty fast.

Have you tried shooting at 6400 ISO just to see what kind of results you get?

I have in-camera NR turned off. I don't know if it affects the RAW files too, or just the JPEGs. I do know it affects transfer times between your buffer and your CF card (basically doubles it, IIRC).

Also, does the rink have a cheaper-quality glass? My son's home arena uses a budget-brand glass that imparts a speckled texture on the images (not to mention a pale green tone). The farther away the subject is from the camera, the greater the effect. The only useful solution is to try to shoot when the play is relatively close-in, although I know that's not always practical. Anyways, your images, with the exception of #7, seem to show that same effect - perhaps it's just a coincidence.

Only image 3,4, and 5 were shot thru glass. The others from penalty box with no glass. Texture you see is likley just noise. Our glass is very good and surprisingly clean. I have convinced maintenance to clean it regulalrly which will help.

6400 on the 50D is very noisy and would need some NR over and above what Lightroom provides.

Not sure what effect cropping might have had, if any, but I don't see a whole lot of difference in the noise between #5 and #6. You'd think the no-glass shot would be significantly cleaner but that doesn't seem to be the case. If that's typical of the 50D than I'm glad I went with the 40D instead.

Good action Chris -

On the noise - it's easily visible on my desktop here, but I looked in earlier from my laptop at work and it's not as noticeable.

I don't envy your light .... it only lets you go 1/400, f2.8 at iso 3200. Yikes.

cheers!

Darsk47 wrote in post #8943031
I don't envy your light .... it only lets you go 1/400, f2.8 at iso 3200. Yikes.

That's about the best I can do in these parts, too.

Nearly crapped when I looked at your thread and saw you were shooting at 800!

1/400, f2.8 at iso 3200 is what I get a my rink as well. At least we are all in the same boat. I like the action in these with faces and pucks. I like 7 without the puck as well. I'm interested in your comparison between the 40D and the 50D. I've been wondering a lot lately how iso 3200 would compare between the 40D and the 7D.

Brikwall wrote in post #8943060
That's about the best I can do in these parts, too.

Nearly crapped when I looked at your thread and saw you were shooting at 800!

That particular rink has a set of "tv lights" . By that I mean there are an extra 10 or so high intensity pots that only get turned on for the Senior Men's team when they play. (Whitby Dunlops - 1957 World Champions !) On this night they were used because of the Olympic team. It helps me with about 2 1/3 stops.

My daughter plays here regularly and I have begged and even attempted bribes to the rink-rats to turn those lights on for her games - no luck. They're expensive to run they say, so they keep them off.

It's not a badly lit rink anyway. Usually I'd go iso 1000 or 1200, f2.8 and 1/400 or thereabouts.

The rink used by the local major junior team also has TV lights, but I'm still shooting at 1/500, f3.2 and ISO 3200. Even worse, the lighting is directional so you can only shoot from one side. But I don't think their TV lights really meet the standards used today (the building, and the lighting system, is 30 years old). So, I can still only dream about shooting hockey at ISO 800...

Not the 50D, but I have started using the MK3 in camera noise reduction for ISO 3200. I used to use H (3200) on my old MK2 and just automatically know I'd need to run them through Noiseware Pro in post. I never really liked the look, so I thought I'd try the MK3 at 3200 with NR turned on and not use Noiseware in post. For sports JPGs, I have to say the in camera NR works pretty well. Not sure if that applies to the 50D, but it's pretty much the same generation of image processor as the MK3, isn't it?

I'm also a member in good standing of the 1/400, f/2.8, ISO 3200 club. This shot is resized, a levels tweak and USM only. In cam NR turned on.

I would invest in Noiseware by Imaginomic. I used to use Noise Ninja but found Noiseware much better. I currently shoot hockey with the 50D and cannot wait for Canon to produce a full sensor camera that shoots 5+ frames per second. After looking at some Nikon full sensor shots at high ISO I am jealous.