Ice Hockey shoot... well... attempted shoot.

[neo2810]

I was offered the chance last weekend to come and shoot a rec Ice Hockey game between a rec side and a Uni team. Having never shot Hockey, and not knowing what the lighting was going to be like, I packed my 40D and 70-200 f2.8 with high hopes...

Upon arrival, it was clear the going would be tough, as the lighting (like almost every non-premiership arena it seems) was awful. In fact the players have been complaining it's not good enough for play for years apparently. So, I cranked up to ISO1600 and shot a few tests at 2.8 getting 1/320 by underexposing a stop. I figured I'd be able to raise the exposure later and that the shutter speed was more important. The noise was pretty bad on the LCD, so I dropped down to ISO800 and shot most of the night at 1/200 and 1/250.

Now then, once I had the shot in LR2, I could push the exposure fairly well without introducing too much noise, but still had to run NR which softened the detail. By working the sharpening against the NR, and dropping the contrast, I managed to get a few shots "acceptable" but not good enough for me. The 5 shots below are the best of the bunch in terms of lighting and sharpness although possibly not the best of the action shots.

I'd like some advice from regular hockey togs if possible since I'll be doing more shoots in future. Do you lose more detail by shooting higher shutter speed at lower ISO800 (so underexposing to push in software later) or by shooting at higher ISO1600 to correctly expose and then just working on NR in software? My guess is getting the exposure spot on while maintaining at least 1/200 speed is key, even if it means using higher ISO?

Cheers in advance...

 

[pxl8]

Bit confused here, exif on the images says ISO800?

The noise reduction certainly seems a bit severe, be interested to see a shot without the NR...

 

[Marc]

Are these heavy crops? Seem quite close to the action given the focal lengths in the Exif.

 

[Grendel]

There's something very odd in the processing with these. The whites seem very unnaturally bleached and the shadows very harsh / hard edged. I wonder if it's caused by too much noise reduction or perhaps too much exposure compensation.

As pxl8 said, it would be very interesting to see an unprocessed shot, maybe with a link to a hi res version or the RAW file for us to have a look at - No3 would be a good one

 

[neo2810]

Thanks chaps, exactly the hard pointers I want.

Bit confused here, exif on the images says ISO800?

The noise reduction certainly seems a bit severe, be interested to see a shot without the NR...

NR is severe, correct (I've never had to use NR so that's user error )

Are these heavy crops? Seem quite close to the action given the focal lengths in the Exif.

Yes, 4 of them are good crops, the 4th just a slight rotation.

There's something very odd in the processing with these. The whites seem very unnaturally bleached and the shadows very harsh / hard edged. I wonder if it's caused by too much noise reduction or perhaps too much exposure compensation.

As pxl8 said, it would be very interesting to see an unprocessed shot, maybe with a link to a hi res version or the RAW file for us to have a look at - No3 would be a good one

Grendel, I pushed the exposure up as well as the highlights seperately using curves, so that will account for the unnatural whites. Again, something to not do next time. The harsh shadows is probably the excessive NR.

I'll post up a link to the RAW's for these shortly (in a rush to get to tonights match now).

 

[neo2810]

Reworked one of them with less NR and not so much exposure push. Looks a lot cleaner to me but still not where I want it to be... I guess I could rework as many times as I want, but the trick is to get the most out of the shot when taking it.

 

[Grendel]

That looks a lot better By the looks of it you could get away with adjusting the levels to get the shot looking brighter without blowing the whites

 

[GooGaBu]

First thing that came to me, was that these were very dark. In many shots the black helmets of the players are not distinguished from the darkness of the seats.

From what I have seen in this Forum is that ISO 800 just won't cut in UK rinks. Our friend KIPAX seems to need to go to ISO 3200 or at least 1600 and no less. Still he only gets the 1/250 or 1/320 ... so I think you really need the ISO higher to get the images anywhere near bright enough.

Even if you said that ISO 1600 you got noise on teh shots... I would wager that the end result is still better with ISO 1600 and decent amount of noise reduction afterwards.

For next time, just live with the ISO 1600. It is near impossible to get crisp images in most UK ice rinks (from what I've read here), maybe then set the f-stop to 2.8 and let the camera decide shutter speed.
I think Manual would be the best way to go.. but that comes easier after you get to know your rink.

Another tip is that try to keep yourself at the 200mm end when shooting towards the goal. WIth the big noise of ISO 1600, you don't want to crop the shots too much.

Hockey isn't the easiest sport to photograph, so one just need to keep grinding at it and gradually notice that they are getting better. I've met togs who do football and other sports, then get an assignment to cover the odd hockey match and are blown away by the speed of the game, the poor light.....

There are some hockey shots on my own site, not saying they are perfect.. but just might give you ideas for your next trip to the ice rink (although.. the light is much better at our Finnish rinks...)

Hope there is something there that sounds reasonable to you...

 

[Tobers]

You've just found out why pros use 1D's and D3's - the ability to go to higher ISO to get a fast shutter speed, and still maintain decent noise performance.

I've never shot ice hockey before, but I know from playing it that it's v.fast moving so you need to get a high shutter to freeze the action. I'd say you need at least 1/500th if not 1/640th minimum. It's always better to get a sharp but grainy shot than a blurred non-noisy shot.

So if you go next time, try either Av mode to fix 2.8 and use ISO to get the shutter speed up, and dont be afraid to max it if required, or use Tv mode and meter of something sensibly neutral, dial in 2.8, 1/500th and tweak the ISO to suit. Shoot in RAw so if the pics are still underexposed as you're more likely to be able to pull them back than JPEGs.

Looking at the rink, with the dark seats and white ice I can see that your camera would get confused in Av so manual is a much better bet.

 

[Buttkicker]

My advice to you if your going to be shooting ice hockey would be to invest in a really 'fast' lens
F2.8 is good for a lot of situations but a fast prime would be your best friend in such lighting

I have a Canon F2.8 70-200mm and it just does not cut it in the dingy ice rinks in the Uk that I have shot at

the shots you have posted in this thread are pretty much non action type shots - or just after the action has happened, I see a really fast prime as a must for these badly lit venues
as an example all the shots you posted here (bar 2 of em) are at 70mm focal length so an 85mm F1.8 prime would yield far better results for you than your zoom has done
cheers Chris

 

[neo2810]

Cheers all for the advice. It's pretty much what I had summised from the experience of the first shoot, but needed assurance.

This is not an intended path of photography, so investing in single purpose lenses is not an option. The 40D (apart from 1600) also has a Hi ISO option which (now that I've checked the manual) is ISO3200 (I had originally thought it was s macro specific setting for some strange Nikon related reason) so I'll be shooting on that next time to get the shutter speed I need.

I always shoot manual and RAW, don't think I've ever used the semi settings at all. Next time, however, I'll be certain to squeeze the zoom more and work with anticipation rather than reaction.

So, looking forward to the next game I get the chance to shoot, just to see what improvement I can find. Much appreciate the help chaps...