Advice/tips for shooting hockey

[cls]

Hi, I’ve covered quite some hockey games over the years but not from “aerial view” – I usually shoot from photo seats fairly rinkside or from even lower level through the plexi. My team’s home venue (Swedish second league) is fairly well lit but you’ll most likely have even better light at Keybank Center.

The exposure is easy: Set your camera to max aperture and around 1/800 sec, and then adjust ISO until you get proper exposure. At f/2.8 I guess ISO 2000 could be a good starting point for you (or ISO 4000 with the extender).

Keeping all exposure settings manual is best – otherwise varying amounts of ice and dark Sabres jerseys in the frame will keep fooling the AE measurement.

Set white balance using the ice if you want OK colors out of camera, otherwise WB is easy to correct in post.

I mainly use 70-200 on a FF body when shooting from rinkside. I get the impression you’ll be seated quite far up, and you’ll likely want as long focal length as possible – 70-200 with extender on a crop body seems like a good idea.

Set AF to thumb AF only – disable trigger AF. That makes it easy to pre-focus on something interesting (e.g. the goalie) and just shoot when something happens. (But remember to use the thumb for AF tracking – if you’re not used to thumb AF only, it may be better to stay with the usual trigger button AF.)

Use high speed shutter to capture the “right” moment but use it with care – you don’t want several hundreds of crappy frames to delete in post. (Use bursts of 3-4 shots when something interesting happens rather than bursts of 10-20.)

Don’t bother trying to capture everything that happens – you won’t succeed. For example you could pick a player and follow his actions during a shift instead of following the puck only. (Many interesting “scenes” take place far from the puck and players are far easier to follow than the puck.)

Look up – shots of engaged spectators may be at least as interesting as shots of the game itself. (Keep separate custom settings for the rink and the audience.)

Enough said – have a fun night!

[Rogue]

Hi, I’ve covered quite some hockey games over the years but not from “aerial view” – I usually shoot from photo seats fairly rinkside or from even lower level through the plexi. My team’s home venue (Swedish second league) is fairly well lit but you’ll most likely have even better light at Keybank Center.

The exposure is easy: Set your camera to max aperture and around 1/800 sec, and then adjust ISO until you get proper exposure. At f/2.8 I guess ISO 2000 could be a good starting point for you (or ISO 4000 with the extender).

Keeping all exposure settings manual is best – otherwise varying amounts of ice and dark Sabres jerseys in the frame will keep fooling the AE measurement.

Set white balance using the ice if you want OK colors out of camera, otherwise WB is easy to correct in post.

I mainly use 70-200 on a FF body when shooting from rinkside. I get the impression you’ll be seated quite far up, and you’ll likely want as long focal length as possible – 70-200 with extender on a crop body seems like a good idea.

Set AF to thumb AF only – disable trigger AF. That makes it easy to pre-focus on something interesting (e.g. the goalie) and just shoot when something happens. (But remember to use the thumb for AF tracking – if you’re not used to thumb AF only, it may be better to stay with the usual trigger button AF.)

Use high speed shutter to capture the “right” moment but use it with care – you don’t want several hundreds of crappy frames to delete in post. (Use bursts of 3-4 shots when something interesting happens rather than bursts of 10-20.)

Don’t bother trying to capture everything that happens – you won’t succeed. For example you could pick a player and follow his actions during a shift instead of following the puck only. (Many interesting “scenes” take place far from the puck and players are far easier to follow than the puck.)

Look up – shots of engaged spectators may be at least as interesting as shots of the game itself. (Keep separate custom settings for the rink and the audience.)

Enough said – have a fun night!

Thanks for your insights. I will be seated almost at the very top of the arena so I'm hoping the 70-200 will be long enough. Having second thoughts about bringing the extender, trying to keep the length of the lense as small as possible to avoid any hassles. I plan on trying to balance shooting and watching the game, this is my first hockey game; I have a feeling I will be doing more shooting than watching. Thanks again.

Trent