Shooting Ice Hockey

<p>I am a fairly new shooter or just a hockey dad that wants good pictures of my son playing hockey. I am using the cannon 50D with the Sigma 70-200/2.8 lens. I know the lighting is not the best in indoor rinks so i use 1600 iso or greater. My pictures don't come out good they often are blurry and with trails. How do i stop this from occurring? What should my settings be? Overall i just need help getting those nice crisp action shots. Sorry if i posted in the wrong forum as a am a beginner, but figured this pertains to sports. Please respond in layman's terms so i can understand what I'm doing wrong.<br>

Thank You<br>

Ray</p>

<p>Is this HS or PeeWee? For HS you need shutter speed of 1/500, maybe 1/400 will get you by. Set camera for manual shooting - ISO to 1600, aperture to 2.8 - 3.5, and shutter to 1/500. Take a few shots, of action, and see what you get. If on the dark side - try adjusting <strong>one</strong> of the above settings: higher ISO if available on the D50, or 1/400, or f3.0 or f2.8.<br>

with a wider aperture you'll get less DOF(depth of field), ie. less distance in focus, so you need to focus or track the subject accurately. The face needs to be sharp! It takes some practice to track your intended subject. You'll get better, or should, the more games you shoot. Also, set continuous AF, and 'burst' setting on the camera, also. I would shoot raw, also. AS for WB, try auto and another setting to see what come closest to being correct. Each rink may be different, so this is opportunity to read in manual about setting custome WB for each particular rink.<br>

Faces and pucks make the best potential pix. Same goes for other - ball and stick - sports, or as in soccer - ball and player.<br>

I have Nikon's D300 and D300S to use this year on HS ice hockey. Last yr cancer treatments took me out of the "picture" so to speak so could not get to use my D300. They will improve high ISO results over the older D70S I had. Generally use the same Sigma lens. Also good are the 85 1.8 and 50 1.8 lenses. Use them to through the glass near the goal cagees. Assuming you can find a clear piece of the glass to shoot through. May be hard in a public rink unless they have recently replaced it. Most often I'm shooting from about 10 rows up, and over the glass, mid way between center and a goal. The 70-200 gets you good coverage in that area. Past the center, away from you, gets to be hard to get nice tight shots. But, with better noise control on new camera you can crop more and still not have the be too obtrusive.</p>

<p>Good shootin'<br>

Steve</p>

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<p>Thank You Steve for your quick response. Yes I'm going to shoot HS so i need to get ready by trying your advice now on individual travel games as practice. I plan on going in the sin bin which should give me very good coverage. Thanks again for all your advice and will practice, practice, practice.</p>

<p>I shoot a lot of hockey photos as my sons play in leagues. I initially shot at higher shutter speeds (around 1/400) but found the "crisp action shots" often looked boring. I now consistently shoot at slow shutter speeds most of the time so the photos emphasis speed and action. Shooting like this typically involves panning with the subject as you are shooting. It typically works best if the subject is moving perpendicular to you and the keeper rate will be lower as the shutter speed lowers. Lower shutter speeds also enable you to shoot at lower ISOs.</p>

<p>I generally shoot at no faster than 1/200, typically 1/160 or 1/125. I find this fast enough and also gives me the best colors (due to the older lighting system of local arena). When I am in the mood for a challenge, I shoot at 1/80 and 1/60 where I find I get my most interesting results. Experiment and have fun!</p><div></div>

<p>Ray,<br />I had the same questions you did a couple of weeks ago. See <a href="../sports-photography-forum/00UmT9">this forum </a>in photo.net. I'm a beginner too and the advice I got was <strong>really</strong> helpful. <br />You're shooting with equipment similar to mine (I use a Canon with a Tamron 70-200/f2.8 lens). What I found worked best for me was manual mode, 1/400, ISO 1600, f2.8. I set mine to AI servo and used the center dot for targeting. I think with the younger age groups I can probably drop to 1/200 or so with ISO 800 and still get nice bright clear pictures. <br />The thing I love is when I get a shot where the main subject is frozen and crystal clear but everything around them has a motion blur. As a rookie photographer, I think that is so cool and it is so much more interesting than the blah depth of field that people with the point and shoot cameras end up with. One warning though, when you get those kinds of awesome images it is only a short distance from there, to becoming the team photographer. :-)</p>