Taking the best pictures at the rink

[thekingsingh 0]

While I'm on the bench, I'd like to start taking some pics of our team on the ice. I have a typical digital camera and was wondering if anyone has some good advice on camera settings.

I noticed photographers tend to take very vibrant, sharp and bright pictures (probably on account of their higher end equipment), while the typical fan's pic comes out a bit dark and unclear. Does anyone have any recommendations on the settings I should use on my camera to take the best on-ice pics?

[steve66 45]

Not sure what camera you have and therefore the settings and customisation possibilities, but the biggest issue is white balance. Hopefully you have some preset settings whereby you can select the type of light for the scene. Typically you select sunny or cloudy, but there are also flourescent, tungsten etc. Fiddle about with the latter two, depending upon which lights your rink uses.

If you can, take a base reading of grey to set the White Balance for shooting in the rink. This is not a very common feature in point and shoots, but the first tip should make your shots brighter.

[Quintin 16]

No flash photography.

[RadioGaGa 162]

Taking good action shots with a lower end digital is hard becuase most of them have a very long lag in the shutter. You aim right at the action and miss it totally by the time the picture is taken.

If your camera has a "Sports" or "Action" mode...use it. It will decrease the lag a little. Most camera allow you to press the button half way to auto-focus, then all the way to take the picture...I find if you focus a couple seciond before you snap, as you follow the play, it tends to reduce the lag and catch more of the action...kinda tricky to do (and explain). You kinda have to anticipate the play...snap where they are going to be as they end the frame rather than where they are....as they leave it.

Do you have a decent zoom? That helps too. My camera has 3x zoom, while my GF has 6x. But, The lag on mine isn't as bad as hers...if we could combine the 2...we've have a pretty good camera.

Hope that helps...

[the iceman 132]

Shutter speed makes a big difference too.

[willc7786 0]

I've got a very good CyberShot, its the model with the highest megapixel in the line, but still haven't been able to take great pics. Anyone know what settings to turn on/off in it?

[Ogie 0]

Your problem there will be that a cyber Shot camera has shutter lag, as RadioGaGa mentioned earlier. There isn't a setting that can "turn off," shutter lag. That is the biggest downfall of consumer digital cameras right now.

[TBLfan 25]

highest shutter speed, no flash.

[Edge 0]

Sorry to hijack, BUT:

My mom has this camera:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1099394810083

with a very good zoom lense(costed quite a bit)

Almost every game she takes pictures and almost always about 75% of them are blurry. We'll try turning off flash, but with this camera, anything special we can do to fix the photos? It is already on sports mode, and the lense has a image stabalizer on it, but they still come out blurry.

[jbyun04 7]

my brother also has a canon not sure which model but it catches videos up to 60fps. I got some videos of him and they turned out VERY good. It has image stabilizer so no matter what the pictures won't turn out blurry. The good thing about the camera is that it has better light sensitivity so it can be more effective indoors without a flash and in this case, you shouldn't use flash when taking action photos.

Just try to get away from the glass as much as possible and shoot where you clearly see the ice, stand up on benches and what not if you have to but it ultimately boils down to what your camera can do and what it can't do.

[Maka 0]

I happen to be a pretty decent photographer. Depending on what kind of camera you have, you'll want to raise your shutterspeed as high as possible. However, if your pictures are too dark, you'll have to open up your aperture a little more or blast your ISO upwards of 800-1600.

[sonsplayhockey 0]

Many rinks have very little light and often use the nasty Tungsten lighting. White balance can be delt with if you use a photo editing software. Biggest thing is the camera. My little pocket digital suk$ in rink. I have a canon 10D digital SLR for my kids sports and Sometimes I give it to spouses in the adult league. Maybe I can bring my camera to take pictures while I"m in the box :)

You need an F4.0 or lower lense I think is best. Set it to the highest ISO number (I use 1600) and a reasonably fast shutter speed 180+

Do everything in manual mode so the stupid camera is not trying to figure this out each shot. Some digital cameras especially the smaller ones may not go above 400ISO. Go to the rink and fiddle in manual mode first. Setting up white balance is nice to do if you can do it easily on your camera but is not as important IMHO as the ISO and shutter speed.

This was taken at a rink with really poor lighting. Yes I scored shortly after the big hunk of meat slashed me.

http://www.davidditch.com/clippers/clipper.../L_IMG_6360.jpg

http://www.davidditch.com/clippers/clipper.../L_IMG_6431.jpg

[chrisg19 5]

Sorry to hijack, BUT:

My mom has this camera:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1099394810083

with a very good zoom lense(costed quite a bit)

Almost every game she takes pictures and almost always about 75% of them are blurry. We'll try turning off flash, but with this camera, anything special we can do to fix the photos? It is already on sports mode, and the lense has a image stabalizer on it, but they still come out blurry.

Thats a pretty good camera. Forget "sports" mode, actually you should forget all the preset modes, you will get better results when you set the camera manually.

For rink shots with that camera, try AV mode (that will control your aperature that lets different amounts of light into the camera) set at the widest opening your lens will allow. I am guessing it is going to be f4. Remember the lower the number the more light it lets in, so 3 would be better than 4 in a low light situation. Set your ISO to 1600, or even 3200. Take a few shots. You have told the camera to open the aperature to let as much light in as the lens will allow, the camera will now automatically adjust the speed of the shutter, you want to shoot at 1/250th or more for stop action in hockey. Try that and see how it goes.

You could alternatively switch to TV mode, and set the shutter speed at 250 or higher, and then the camera will determine the aperature opening for you. I don't care for this mode as much because the sensor gets tricked by the white of the ice, and thinks there is more light available than there really is. So I use the AV mode in these situations.

Regardless of which method you use, you will need to process the photos with image editing software, to get a decent look. The photos I have posted on another thread of NJ Devils practice all went through this process Photoshop>curves>Levels>some contrast>neat image>done.

The processing is a whole 'nother art form, start with getting better quality photos, then experiment.

Good Luck,

Chris

[Edge 0]

Chris that's AWESOME info! I'm taking a Photo 1 class in school and we are gradually learning this stuff so what you are saying is starting to sound familiar...again thanks a ton, and i'll see how it works.

I'm actually pretty talented in photoshop/image editing so after the mother gets her part of the deal done, we'll have some quality stuff!

[scubafrogman 0]

Chris that's AWESOME info! I'm taking a Photo 1 class in school and we are gradually learning this stuff so what you are saying is starting to sound familiar...again thanks a ton, and i'll see how it works.

I'm actually pretty talented in photoshop/image editing so after the mother gets her part of the deal done, we'll have some quality stuff!

Chris is correct on his pointers.

You mothers camera is good enough for taking hockey pics. I would guess that she needs a better lens. Most consumer zoom lens don't have a fixed aperature setting. What I mean by this is that as you zoom in your aperture number gets larger (less light). You need a lens that you can set at say f2.8 or f4 and it will remain there no matter if you are at 70mm or 200mm. Most Canon high end lens will run you over 1K but there are options. I found that I can get decent pics with a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 on my Canon 20D at ISO1600 or ISO3200.

Most rinks have horrible lighting. My rink has a mixture of lights so white balance is another thing you will fight with. You will notice that some pics come out with a yellowish tint and some come out with a blue tint. Most professionals at hockey, basketball, volleyball, etc. use strobes located in the rafters.

Sorry, this is a quick and breif response as I have dinner on the stove.

Good luck and just keep shooting. The luxury of digital is it is cheap to practice. You don't have to waste darkroom chemicals. :)

[nizmo 0]

I have a 350D and usually shoot at ISO1600 in AV at F4.

Some sample shots:

[Quintin 16]

Wow, sharp!

[NuggyBuggy 0]

Especially if you're using a zoom lens, some of the blurriness may be due to the camera moving around. If this is a problem consider putting it on a tripod and using a remote to trigger the shutter release, if it has one.

I have not tried to shoot pictures in a rink so I am not sure if this is an issue, but higher ISO settings will - all things equal - result in grainier pictures so you have to experiment with that tradeoff.

[lohnman 0]

If you want to get great hockey action photos you really need a shutter speed of 1/500th or above. Below this and you will not beable to "stop" the action, you will get motion blur. To achieve this shutter speed in a hockey rink usually requires a fast lens even 2.8 might not be enough and a camera cabable of shooting ISO 1600. If you can't achieve those setting you will not get "great" looking shots. In most rinks there is not enough availble ambient light to get a proper exposure at the given shutter speed and ISO. Alot of the shots you see on line that are taken by "professinal photographers" are taken in rinks with suffiencient ambient light. Most of these rinks have games that are telivised so they have the lights cranked up for the TV cameras. Another alternative to getting more light is to use strobes, which I use if I 'm taking photos at a local rink were there is not nearly enough ambient light to satisfy even high end equipment. It's nearly impossible to get a great hockey photo out of a point and shoot camera because they aren't really made for the job. Most aren't capable of high ISO settings or high aperatures values.

[mdamson 0]

Shooting hockey is one of the toughest assignments in photography. You are often looking at very low, poor color light, and trying to freeze very fast moving action. Therefore you can almost forget about getting reliable pictures out of a point and shoot camera. The lens just isn't quick enough (eg. the aperture isn't allowed to open wide enough), and the shutter lag between button press and picture being taken is just too great. It will always be a hit and miss affair. So start with a high quality camera, and most important get a good quality lens.

The lens is the most important part of a camera, and if you have to spend money make sure you spend it on the lens. You can buy the greatest camera in the world, but if you put a crappy lens on it you won't get good pictures. However, you can get great pictures using a high quality lens on a lesser camera. The Rebel should be more than adequate for hockey pictures. However, I would want a fast lens of at least f4.0 preferably f2.8 for taking hockey pictures. Think of the lens kind of like the speakers on a stereo. Crappy speakers = Crappy sound, Crappy Lens = Crappy Pictures.

Also don't worry too much about the length of lens. I have gotten great pictures using a 28-70mm f2.8 lens from the penalty box (also good location to avoid a glare from any glass). Another good place to shoot is from the bench (if you have the opportunity), or depending on the rink, over the top of the glass. An ideal lens for hockey is an 80-200mm f2.8. This lens is able to fill the frame from a large portion of the rink, and is fast enough to accomodate hockey.

Shooting at higher ISO numbers will also start to add more noise to your pictures, because you are cranking up the sensitivity of the CCD in the camera. This will make your photos seem like they have little bits of the wrong color in certain sections. A great tool to correct this, if you use Photoshop, is a filter called Noise Ninja. It is a piece of software that corrects noise, and does a great job. It is available at http://www.picturecode.com. They even use hockey in the example on their main page. You will be amazed by the before and after effects.

White balance is also a problem due to the color of many of the lights in arenas. Look into how to properly set your camera to do a manual white balance for a particular rink's lights.

To stop action properly you will at least want to be shooting at 1/250th of a second for a shutter speed. This is where the fast lens comes into play. You set the aperture as wide as you can to try to get at least 1/250th of a second. Ideally you would be able to set the aperture down a little to get a little more depth of field (eg. how much of the photo is in focus from near to far). This ability really depends on how much light you have available.

To summarize, get yourself a good camera with a high quality lens; open the lens up and try to get a fast shutter speed; adjust your white balance; shoot from a good location; and use the proper software to process your image.

[thekingsingh 0]

Thanks for all the great tips guys! It's been very helpful.