Ice Hockey - 7D + 70-200

Now i am shooting with AWB. looking for comments on how i could have improved this shot.

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tonyecj wrote in post #11959950
Now i am shooting with AWB. looking for comments on how i could have improved this shot.

Well........

It's not level, you're tilting to the left

It needs a crop to remove the non-value added aspects like #35 and everything left of the net.

Even after that's out, there's really no much to focus on. You have no faces. If you were right in on the goalie you might have a nice "ready shot" of him, but you have 2 black D and a white shooter just mucking about. So overall it's the the composition of this one that doesn't work.

Usually, you need to be able to pull in on something and isolate it, or the photo just looks like a snapshot from the crowd.

The WB looks ok, you colour could use some sat, and an un-sharp mask usually helps too.

cheers !

Maybe the 7D's 18 MP can save the shot when cropping to the player diving (or falling?) towards the puck but you're so far away, or just not 'zoomed' in far enough to get the shot. I would try cropping horizontal to have the goaltender and the diving/falling player in the shot to see if the crop works without being really soft from such a large crop.. otherwise it's a delete

great info thanks. shooting more tomorrow

Hockey starting again and I hope I can do better this year. I am not sure how to get the ice to be lighter without overexposing. Any critiques on the attached photo?

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i would like to make a "fat Head" wall poster but I am not sure that the focus is good. Should I try shooting at something other than F2.8

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I had to google fat head poster to see what it was.

My guess is you'll want something as tack sharp as possible. Especially if you go for life size and enlarge it.

Since it appears the poster is just the athlete, I 'd stage him skating toward you a few times. Slowly, so you can use something like f4. If you've got a decent flash, try that as well. That way you can be sure to get a lower iso and f4 or 5.6 and get a good sharp result.

keep us informed ! Cheers

i only have the flash that is on the 7D. Any recommendations on a decent flash?

So are these settings correct?

manual mode
F4
Manual select: single point AF
Picture style: Standard
custom WB or AWB
Metering Mode: Evaluative metering
AI Servo

need help on brightening the uniform without washing out the ice

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It's hockey, you generally will have nearly blown out ice to get uniforms exposed under ambient/arena lighting. Doing an auto-contrast might just make it look better with the exposure we can see already though. Need to crop tight by the way. By the way, since you're shooting with a 7D you should use it to your advantage and not limit to shooting at ISO 1250.. you should get very usable images at ISO 2000 without running much if any noise reduction, and ISO 3200 looks good with a bit of noise reduction (Neat Image is my preference at the moment, getting a copy of Lightroom tomorrow so I'll experiment with it's noise reduction some day soon.)