Ice Hockey: San Jose Sharks vs. Montreal Canadiens

aktse

I haven't posted photos in a while and I thought I should share some from the Sharks' latest game.

I was lucky enough to go with someone with lower bowl season tickets and who didn't mind eating dinner while watching the warm ups as long as I bring dinner for us. I think I've been shooting in darks caves (rinks around the bay area) for way too long ---- I'm always suprised about how good the lighting is at the Shark Tank! And the Sharks have a good camera policy -- no lens great than six inches.

I was able to stand next to the boards during warmups and shoot through the glass.... :wink

1.Craig Rivet



2.A bruised up Jody Shelly


3. Jumbo Joe Thornton



And I shot the game while sitting in Row 19 and through the netting.

4. Both goalies had a tough night, but Evgeni Nabokov did better.


5. Carey Price, Goalie... he really had a tough night and was not having fun.




6. The new guy in town -- Brain Campbell, known as Soupy.

He had a goal that will probably make the top ten on ESPN for the entire year. I missed capturing his super cool spin move, but I did get his goal that he scored after pulling that spin-o-rama move.





7. Lucky pros. They get to sit right next to the boards AND shoot through a hole in the glass. It so much easier! One was shooting Nikon and the other was Canon.


C&C welcomed.... Thanks for looking!

ian408

Nice. What'd you shoot with and how'd you get it in

mr peas

Go Sharks! Cool catches. But yeah, how did you sneak such a thing into that place, lol.

aktse

Actually, I didn't sneak anything in. :hide

I now come to the games with my 20D with my 135mm on, along with my expo disc and my 1.4x extender. Even though I'm perfectly legal with the 1.4x on, I will get harassed by the ticket people. So, I just leave it off until I get to my seats.

The warmups were shot with the 135mm and I actually had the wrong white balance set.

The ones during the game were shot with the 135mm and the 1.4x. Acutally, this set up works reasonable well with my normal seats (top row of the nosebleed section). The netting doesn't get in the way too much as long as I foucs on the far end of the ice.

If I had my choice, it would easily be my 70-200, and maybe with the extender, but there is no way that I can sneak that one in. The lighting at the Shark Tank is quite good compared to everything that I'm used to shooting in and the glass is mostly clean. However, I do find that the new electric signs in the area throws off the color especially when they're all flashing.

I'm just glad that there is such a good camera policy. You can do a lot with a 6 inch lens!

BradfordBenn

Nice shots.

How did you get the ice to look right? My shots have ended up with a lot less "white" to it.

ian408

BradfordBenn wrote:

Nice shots.

How did you get the ice to look right? My shots have ended up with a lot less "white" to it.

It's the lights. Nice, bright and consistent lighting. Makes WB a whole lot easier.

aktse

BradfordBenn wrote:

Nice shots.

How did you get the ice to look right? My shots have ended up with a lot less "white" to it.

ian408 wrote:

It's the lights. Nice, bright and consistent lighting. Makes WB a whole lot easier.

Thanks for the kind words! I've worked really hard in learning how to shoot ice hockey and I think all the time that I spent in cold, dark rinks has finally paid off!

Ian is right when saying that bright consistent lighting makes this easier, but the key to shooting ice hockey (and snow, etc.) is setting the white balance and it doens't matter if you're shooting at the big professional arena or at the rink down the street from your house.

In general, setting the a custom white balanace is the important step and whenever I forget to do so, or set it incorrectly, all frames have a ugly color cast to them. :cry I've seen other frames of the Sharks game and I can easily pick out those who paid attention to the WB and those that didn't.

For the Sharks game, I tend to bring in an expo disc. I have also used those popup things and used the ice or the boards as well. I just bought another white balance gadget and will be testing that one out soon once it arrives in the mail. In addition to the white balance, you should also exposure compensate about a stop or so. The histogram is your friend....

However, when I do nail the white balance, like during this game, the results can be very nice.

hschlessphoto

these photos are awesome! they are very clean, noiseless, and crisp...fantastic job!what was the aperature of your lens?

aktse

hschlessphoto wrote:

these photos are awesome! they are very clean, noiseless, and crisp...fantastic job!what was the aperature of your lens?

Thank you so much for your kind words! :smo It's always good to hear feedback, especially good feedback

As for the aperature of the lens, it's a 135mm f/2.0 and is known as one of the sharpest canon lenses. To the surprise of many, this is the first lens that I ever bought and I bought it since it was the cheaper of the two recommended to me.

For the game, I shot it with and without the 1.4x teleconverter and in generally, you found me between f/2.8 and f/4.0 and I can probably back off a bit and get away with it at the Shark Tank, but I'm still playing around with my exposure settings. I was at either iso 800 or iso 400 and like to keep my shutter speeds above 1/800 since the pros are just so fast.

Things are so much easier with decent lighting, or at least what I considered to be decent lighting. I find that my perspective is different than most people due to the time that I spent in the local dark hockey rinks.

A few more from that game:

1. Douglas Murrray


2. Christian Ehrhoff


3. Nabby making another great save. If you look carefully, you can see the netting.


C&C welcomed.