Youth hockey CC
wolfnature
Registered Users Posts: 13 Big grins
Hello Everyone,
I have been photographing youth hockey for a couple years now (primarily my sons team) and would appreciate some CC. I've always gotten good comments from parents, which is great to hear, but I have never put my pictures out there for review by other photographers.
In general I think one of the biggest things I struggle with is the overall sharpness of the picture. A big part of this I think is the fact that I am shooting at high ISO and getting a lot of noise and my PP needs some refinement.
All of these pictures were taken with a Canon 70-200mm 2.8L on a Canon 20D (although I just got a 7D a couple weeks ago). Generally I set the camera to AV mode and let it determine the shutter speed, and have the focus set to AI Servo.
Any comments and critiques would be greatly appreciated.
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I wanted to include this picture even though I know that from a technical viewpoint it's not that good. The story behind it is that the team had a very rough season and finally won their first game over halfway through the season. This is definately one of those capture the moment shots, just wish that it was a better picture (although this was one of the favorites for all the parents)
I have been photographing youth hockey for a couple years now (primarily my sons team) and would appreciate some CC. I've always gotten good comments from parents, which is great to hear, but I have never put my pictures out there for review by other photographers.
In general I think one of the biggest things I struggle with is the overall sharpness of the picture. A big part of this I think is the fact that I am shooting at high ISO and getting a lot of noise and my PP needs some refinement.
All of these pictures were taken with a Canon 70-200mm 2.8L on a Canon 20D (although I just got a 7D a couple weeks ago). Generally I set the camera to AV mode and let it determine the shutter speed, and have the focus set to AI Servo.
Any comments and critiques would be greatly appreciated.
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
I wanted to include this picture even though I know that from a technical viewpoint it's not that good. The story behind it is that the team had a very rough season and finally won their first game over halfway through the season. This is definately one of those capture the moment shots, just wish that it was a better picture (although this was one of the favorites for all the parents)
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Comments
Steve
www.slipkid.com
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money". -- Margaret Thatcher
I am new to this forum and I am learning how to shoot youth hockey. Take my comments with a grain of salt. I like your results with WB and sharpness. I am still working on that from last season and hope to improve with some new glass this year. I won't be much help on the technical side. There are a few things I noticed when looking at the images that you might want to consider:
Image #1: I like the shot. Carry puck with head up and looking down ice. A little more foreground with empty ice would put the puck more into the frame. At the same time, a portrait chop would eliminate the distracting details at the very right edge.
Image #2: I like the face looking up. It would be nice to see the full stick and skates.
Image #3: You got the action very well. The coaches heads are cut off in the background. I imagine they were watching the play also... We can tell the other three on the bench were looking.
Image #4: Feels "tight". You caught the goalie emotion and that is good. The player in the foreground has both ends of the stick cut off. It pulls the focus away from the subject. The second player in has the skates partialy cut off at the toes. Also, the DOF puts the goalie in focus and the clutter at the rink behind the glass. There is a lot more in the frame around the subject itself - "tight is the best way I can put the feeling.
Image #5: I like this one. Empty ice on the stick side and the direction of movement.
Image #6: Nice shot. Goal stick and pads on the ice with face looking toward you. Great timing and view from the corner. Again it's minor to note that part of both defenders' heads along with the forward's stick and skate are missing. It pulls you out of the frame instead of toward the subject.
Image #7: I like this one too.
Image #8: This needs more of the sceen to tell what is going on. I will come back to the sticks and the crop just below the hands makes me want to know/see more of what's going on...
Image #9: Most of mine fall into this bucket. Funny thing is while in the moment you sometimes don't even take the shot and just watch.
I can say that based on the many hockey pics from parents that I see you should be proud. I do like your shots. A lot of parents just give up after a few attempts. Just getting the WB right, along with stopping the action and proper exposure can be difficult. Then there is getting the shot, dealing with the plexi glass, etc.
I am curious what the f-stop, focal length, ISO and shutter speed of the images were? I am still learning and it helps make comparisons. I have had a few people make suggestions without real experience, and, I am at the point where I like to see the results at those settings. Then go try them myself.
I guess that is why I recently joined here.
Best regards,
-Mark
If you have the 7D, I would use that body as your main hockey body. The 20D is quite capable, but the AF is slower and it is nosier at high ISO. Depending in the ISO used, some sort of noise reduction is helpful.
You didn't post any EXIF, but I think your sharpness issues is to to shutter speeds that are too slow for action shots at the rink. The AV mode is probably dropping you too slow. For example, the eyes are sharp when the players are not moving much, e.g. the face off in #2 and the goalie protecting the post in #7. It also appears that your focus points are moving around and I think you're using auto points AF. I generally find that most sports, it's more accurate to shoot with center point only.
Your WB is acceptable, but you're still going from blue to yellow, especially if you are PP'ing the images. Assuming these two frames are from the same game, you should compare the color of the boards and ice.
Keep up the good work and I hope this helps
I shoot available light hockey. If you want lit hockey (or lit indoor sports) photos, do a search on tjk60; he's awesome.
The exposure (shutter speed, iso, aperture) of any photo is really dependent on the amount of available light in the area, but there are some general rangers which work best for specific types of photography.
For available light hockey photos, I generally spend people to this thread.
Good luck.
April,
That's the thread that came up when I was doing a web search and brought me to this site. I then followed the link in your sig (very nice shots) and decided to register. It was that post and the one on WB that made me feel that I could get good information from friendly people willing to share.
I moved up from video and the occasional point and shoot at the beginning of this year. I got some bad advice and maybe a few lucky shots. The funny thing is that my son has played for 5 years and I don't have any quality shots to remember by. I also have season tickets to the CBJ (I saw your Jody Shelley #45 shots) since day one. We sit in the lower bowl, corner right above the camera hole - accross from the lower face off and in front of goal not the one looking down the ice. I think of all the opportunities I had for some great shots... Anyway, I hope to get some shots this year. I'll have to see what lenses are allowed.
I was thinking of starting a thread to document my progress this year. I would hope you (and others) would comment and make some suggestions.
Thanks again for the welcome.
-Mark
Generally speaking my settings are AV mode set at 2.8 and ISO 1600. This usually results in the shutter speed hovering between 1/250 and 1/640 (mostly 1/400) depending on the rink, and even where on the rink (middle versus the ends).
After seeing comments on some other pictures and reviewing things, i think some of my sharpness and focus issues are due to my focus settings. I was using all points instead of just using single point for focusing. I plan on making the 7d my primary body and am looking forward to using it this weekend for a couple games. I am going to experiment with a couple focus settings and see how the results work. I also plan on pushing the ISO up (since there is less noise in the 7d) so I can get my shutter speeds higher.
As far as the images appearing tight, I can see that. I think a big part of that is that I tend to try to capture the individual child because I am trying to please parents. When I go wider it seems that I loose some of the facial expressions and emotions of the game. I try to get group action shots with several players, but at this age it usually is everyone bumping into each other. However, I do need to be more aware of the background when players are close to the boards.
Again, thank you for the comments. I am looking forward to a fun season and LOTS of pictures.
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I'm going to agree with April on the SS being an issue. I would also comment that these are a little dark--knowing that rinks are in general, pretty dark (especially when they're in energy saving mode and only have 1/2 the lights on). In addition, it's almost always helpful to have the puck in your shots along with a face.
You've got some nice shots there. Plenty of emotion showing in them. It looks like the white balance is a bit off between some of them (using auto white balance in camera?) and some of them look a little dark (but that could just be my monitor at work!). If you are shooting jpeg, I'd recommend shooting raw instead. Raw will give you a number of advantages - more exposure information, ability to adjust white balance, etc. The problem with setting a custom white balance and then using jpeg is that the lights "cycle" and aren't a consistent colour. So you could set your white balance and then find three shots in a burst are all slightly different because of the slight (imperceptible to the eye) change from the lights.
Here's what I do - this may or may not be of use to you, but hopefully it may help...
I shoot using a 50D and (usually) a 70-200 f4 L (yes, f4!). I find that at the couple of arenas I go to, the lighting is just about there (although it could always be brighter). I have to push the ISO up to 3200, but that's fine with the 50D and a little post processing (I've recently found that Lightroom 3 has amazing noise reduction). I only shoot in raw which allows me to fine-tune after (white balance - although that can still be tricky sometimes, noise reduction, exposure adjustment, etc). I use centre-point focus only and try to frame a little (not too much) looser than normal to allow for some cropping and straightening.
I've also got the high-speed burst mode on and I have moved the focus button from the shutter to the back (the * button) which allows me to control when the camera focuses independently of the shutter action.
Exposure control I use Manual mode only. At the start of the game I'll open up the aperture as wide as possible and then take some test shots to get the shutter speed set by assessing the histogram. The lighting tends to be fairly even from end to end so I can just leave it like that. And I'd rather have a shot that was a bit darker (which may be rescued) than it should be to one that is all blurred because the camera decided to drop the shutter speed.
Most of the time I'm shooting through the plexi-glass. This makes the images a little softer and it also takes away a little of the light. But when printed the images come out looking good.
For some other shots I'll use my 50mm 1.8 or my 100mm 2.8 macro.
Hope this helps. Some examples...
If you're interested in seeing any more, check out
http://nickbull.smugmug.com/Sports/Panthers-vs-Blaze-5-Sep-2010/13674187_qUzDu#998653776_cHLDS
and
http://nickbull.smugmug.com/Sports/Panthers-vs-Blaze-19-Sep-2010/13853265_zG6mm#1015656591_ndKqU
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickbull
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