James, Barry, John:
Thanks for the suggestions and advice.
1) I agree that practice will help, though I don't expect to be doing
this more than two or three times a year (the tiny one lives approx 2
hrs away, though my wife has two teenage nephews in Connecticut who also
play hockey). At this time, I will be happy with the "cute kid"
pictures - as will the parents and extended family. For the 6 yr old, I
will try to get access to the bench area, where there's no plexiglass.
2) I had not really thought about black and white. I'm really a colour
person. B&W rarely does anything for me. However, I will try it once to
see how the pictures come out. Who knows, maybe I will like the effect.
3) I will not bring flash again, for a number of reasons. Aside from the
safety aspect, my flash runs out at 800ASA, so I would probably be
limited to using it in TTL mode on the OM-2, rather than automatic mode
on the OM-1 (either f4 or f8). It will be interesting to compare the
two sessions and see just what effect the flash had (or didn't have).
4) I will try some 1600 ASA fuji film the next time. I will have to see
how the colour shift is without flash. As I'm new to this part, should I
mention to the person developing the film that the colour balance needs
to be checked/adjusted? For these trial and error shots - and these
really are - I usually just get them put on CD, and play with/print as
required at home. That way I don't have to show or pay for the errors.
From a general perspective, there were a number of "firsts" going on
when I took the pictures: the first real test of the Tamron, the monopod
and the environment. I also hadn't used the OM-1 in a while - even
longer with flash. I could have screwed up quite easily!!
Martin
James N. McBride wrote:
>1. Don't shoot through he Plexiglas. You spent all that money on a good lens
>and the Plexiglas renders it useless. The open areas near the benches or by
>the penalty box are the best vantage points but you may need special
>permission to shoot from there. If you do shoot from there learn to work
>with both eyes open because you will need to watch what is coming from both
>sides all the time. The older kids elbows and sticks extend over the edge of
>the boards, even if your head is there.
>
>2. Do not use a flash. If you catch a player looking right into the flash
>you may blind them and cause an accident. Pissed-off hockey parents are not
>a pretty sight and they may beat the crap out of you. Even worse, they might
>damage your camera.
>
>3. There are filters to compensate for fluorescent lights but they do absorb
>some light. The older the kids the faster they move and the more you need to
>shoot at high shutter speeds. Using black and white film makes the color
>shift problem go away but the processing cost (or time) can be prohibitive.
>The lights are always high so expect to have shadowing problems.
>
>4. Once you get past the "cute kid" type of pictures, good hockey action
>pictures are hard to get as you must anticipate the action and fire the
>shutter before things happen. That burns a lot of film. Many of the hard
>checks and exciting action will look very passive in pictures unless you hit
>things just right. The best pictures are when you can see the shooter, the
>goalie, and the puck in the image. That is not easy. Some rinks have a high
>vantage point you can shoot from but the pictures taken from a low vantage
>point are much more dramatic. In close with a wider lens is more exciting
>than far away with a long lens. (Exciting from both the image standpoint and
>the potential injury to the photographer.)
>
>5. If you want to be good at photographing hockey (or any other sport) start
>photographing the kids when they are small and build your skills as they get
>older and faster. Look at the work of professional photographers in
>magazines like Sports Illustrated and try to imagine how they got those
>pictures. The more you know the kids and the sport, the better you will be
>able to anticipate the action peaks. It's fun but also hard work.
>
>/jmac
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx]On
>Behalf Of Martin Walters
>Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 1:34 PM
>To: Olympus mailing list
>Subject: [OM] Ice hockey photography
>
>
>I’d like to see what wisdom there is out there for successful colour
>photography in hockey arenas.
>
>My wife’s nephew and god son is old enough (6 years) to play
>“competitive” hockey! Everyone in the family knows that I have been
>acquiring photo equipment, which to them looks awfully like
>“professional” stuff. They now expect “professional” photos - whatever
>that may mean.
>
>Last weekend I took along my OM-1 (the OM-2 needs new light seals),
>Tamron 180, reasonably powerful flash, new monopod and Kodak 400ASA film
>to try the lot out. This was uncharted territory, and luckily the little
>tikes only used one-half of the rink. I got the photos back and they
>were not bad (and not as bad as I had feared).
>
>What are the issues?
>- With flash, I spent the whole time at 1/60, so it’s a good job the
>little ones don’t skate fast.
>- In small municipal arenas, you are stuck behind the “glass”, or at
>least part of the glass, and there are no "look down" shots.
>- A reasonably powerful flash (good to approx 70 ft in telephoto setup)
>doesn’t do much at all (I suspect the "glass" cuts down on light
>transmission).
>- As long as the skaters were pretty much still the photos were quite
>sharp (as expected given the shutter speed).
>- the ice was not “white” - had a grey/green “mottled” tinge, indicating
>artificial light, though the other colours (uniforms, adverts etc) were
>pretty reasonable.
>
>For next time, I think I will leave the flash at home (apparently at
>professional games they are banned anyway) and run with 800 ASA (Fuji is
>easily available) and a faster shutter speed. I wonder if I should be
>directly behind the "glass", rather that a couple of rows up in the
>seats. Using daylight film, I presume that I will have to adjust colour
>balance (which I can do in Photoshop Elements) to get white things white.
>
>So, any help/advice would be welcome.
>
>Martin
>
>
>
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