Ocean State Classic Ice Hockey Tournament

SirGeorge

Last weekend, I shot my first Ice hockey Tournament which prevented many challenges (especialy recyclying lighting) and the least of which was shooting 30 games in 4-days. I tried to average 150 to 200 keeper shots per game only shooting in the 1st and 2nd period and discarding images on my camera during the 3rd to keep up before the next game started!! I posted about 6500 images for the kids but for my enjoyment and hopefully to sell. I put together 45 of my favorite shots in a smugmug gallery and here are a few. All images were batch processed for noise, sharpness and light- so if each of the following aren't perfect (and they are not) I will live with that , hope you enjoy.

If you would like to see more, click here for the gallery

Technically, (EOS40D and 70mm-200mm L IS f/2.8) I was shooting at ISO1600 with partial metering mode in AV - because of the lighting the shutter speed was any where from 1/800th to 1/60th - I stayed with AV instead of manual because of my PP plan

slipkid

I have both played there and shot there, the lighting is good with decent glass. The photo's look, the WB is dead on. I am sure the parents will enjoy the pictures. I will be shooting my kids HS game tonight at URI tonight, good lighting there too.
Keep up the good work and keep those hockey shots coming.

Shark

From what I can see,
looks like you got some nice shots here. Hockey, in my opinion is a very hard sport to shoot. I do high school hockey and it can be brutal if the rink you're in hasn't got good lighting. I love it though. I have bookmarked your site, and I will visit it later on today or tomorrow to check the rest of your photos out. I'm not that great, but I like my stuff. If you'd like to check out some of my hockey photos, click here: www.pbs131.smugmug.com
On there you will see photos taken from as far back as the 2004 season, when I was shooting hockey games with my Sony Cybershot Point & Shoot, through a season with my Canon Rebel, then my Canon 40D, and finally, this season when I used my Canon 50D.

SirGeorge

Anticipation
Hi Shark,
Some pretty good shots on your site - I posted 6,300 shots ( I had a second shooter who worked a second rink where the light was much more crappy ) from the meet (30 games plus the awards) and the trick to hockey, I found, is not different from any other sport - anticipation.

If you shoot what you see it will be gone, sport is too fast. You have to shoot what is about to happen. So after every bad call, every late hit, every time the coach yells at the kids - expect something to happen. Sometimes you get lucky, I have one airborne shot of a hockey player that I put down to luck but the rest were shot in anticipation.

In December 2008 I shot a pro soccer game in Scotland from the sideline and I captured an amazing bad tacke because there was a bad call, the fans were all upset and something was going to happen- all team sports, in my opinion, operate that way.

Thanks for the response,

George.

Shark wrote:

looks like you got some nice shots here. Hockey, in my opinion is a very hard sport to shoot. I do high school hockey and it can be brutal if the rink you're in hasn't got good lighting. I love it though. I have bookmarked your site, and I will visit it later on today or tomorrow to check the rest of your photos out. I'm not that great, but I like my stuff. If you'd like to check out some of my hockey photos, click here: www.pbs131.smugmug.com
On there you will see photos taken from as far back as the 2004 season, when I was shooting hockey games with my Sony Cybershot Point & Shoot, through a season with my Canon Rebel, then my Canon 40D, and finally, this season when I used my Canon 50D.

clcoronios

Not only team sports - all sports require the photog to KNOW the sport (and in some cases, the specifics within the sport) in order to capture THE SHOT. As has been said, by the time your eye sees the shot, gets the message to the brain which has to relay it to your finger, that moment is GONE forever. You have to know when it's GOING to happen.

Carol