First time NHL shooter

chuckice

I went to watch/shoot the Hurricanes a few weeks back. First time shooting hockey. Man it was tough. I generally shoot cycling and mostly outdoors. Anyways...here's some samples. Any thoughts? Any tips/tricks/changes from anyone? Much appreciated! BTW...the game ended on a shootout with Carolina pulling it out 5-4.

spider

Great series of shots Chuckice. I can't retrieve your exif data, what kind of camera, lens and settings were you using? I shot some NHL hockey a few weeks ago in Atlanta, using a Canon RebelXT with 100 mm prime lens. I was at a somewhat higher angle than you. The game I attended also ended in a shootout, but the Thrashers lost.

DoctorIt

Calling Winger to the white courtesy phone...

Chuck some of those are really nice, some of them are a bit blurry. Other than the few not so sharp, your colors and exposure are very nice - which I know from experience is not easy to do with hockey.

And if Winger doesn't reply here, check out some of her hockey stuff here (I consider her our dgrin hockey expert, with Andy's help on retouch through the past year or so )

chuckice

Yeah...some are a little blurry...unfortunately our seats were pretty crappy and I was so crowded. Absolutely no way to hold steady. It's SO tough shooting in the arena!

DoctorIt wrote:

Calling Winger to the white courtesy phone...

Chuck some of those are really nice, some of them are a bit blurry. Other than the few not so sharp, your colors and exposure are very nice - which I know from experience is not easy to do with hockey.

And if Winger doesn't reply here, check out some of her hockey stuff here (I consider her our dgrin hockey expert, with Andy's help on retouch through the past year or so )

chuckice

spider wrote:

Great series of shots Chuckice. I can't retrieve your exif data, what kind of camera, lens and settings were you using? I shot some NHL hockey a few weeks ago in Atlanta, using a Canon RebelXT with 100 mm prime lens. I was at a somewhat higher angle than you. The game I attended also ended in a shootout, but the Thrashers lost.

Sorry...they're jpg converts of raw and I rarely save exif on jpg converts. They're all taken with a Nikon D200, 70-200 2.8 lens. I'd say most are at iso400+ and they're all at 200mm. I don't recall aperture/ss but pretty much what you'd expect...around f4ish and 1/200. The action is so fast, our seats were on an extreme end and the Hurricanes are having a great year so it was PACKED in there. I was actually surprised I didn't get hassled about bringing in the camera gear.

Steve Cavigliano

Good work Charles

I think you did really well for the 1st time shooting hockey As Doc pints out, some are a bit blurry and I noticed that the ice looks a little "dirty" or yellow/brown in most of the shots. The one where the ice looks right (white) is the 3rd from the last shot. The shot when I originally viewed it, looked to have a bit of a red tint to it.... A caveat being I am at my work monitor and it sux for viewing pics. If you don't see the ice and red tint issues, we can blame my monitor (not my elderly eyes...)

If you were that far away, I would have shot wide open to double the speed. It would have also helped with any camera shake issues. Well, other than the jerk next to you pouring his beer down your back.

Steve

DJ-S1

chuckice wrote:

Definitely good work considering the difficult circumstances, I doubt I would even attempt shooting hockey with those limitations. I don't know if the images would hold up to more cropping, but I find that tighter shtos are better for action sports.

I think the photo I included above looks much brighter than the rest. I would suggest that all of them should match this one as far as the white point goes. Get rid of the yellow cast and the shots will pop more.

[edit] Hey Steve, you beat me to it!

chuckice

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Good work Charles

I think you did really well for the 1st time shooting hockey As Doc pints out, some are a bit blurry and I noticed that the ice looks a little "dirty" or yellow/brown in most of the shots. The one where the ice looks right (white) is the 3rd from the last shot. The shot when I originally viewed it, looked to have a bit of a red tint to it.... A caveat being I am at my work monitor and it sux for viewing pics. If you don't see the ice and red tint issues, we can blame my monitor (not my elderly eyes...)

If you were that far away, I would have shot wide open to double the speed. It would have also helped with any camera shake issues. Well, other than the jerk next to you pouring his beer down your back.

Steve

That one does have a slight red tint but it could be deceiving...it has the red Hurricanes logo in the ice so it might look off on some. It *seems* ok on mine but hard to tell. Good tips on the shooting...thanks. The action is so fast that I should've just fixed all my settings but I kept trying to tweak them and the action would be over before I could get it right. Hockey's alot tougher than I thought...especially with a $78 beer in one hand.

chuckice

I cleaned up this one...hopefully not as yellow-ish anymore. Your eyes begin to play trix on you from staring at pictures of ice for days. Sorry no before/after but I think it looks closer...