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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...
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...
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