We’re going to be pushing the limits of our cameras, lenses and technique so equipment selection becomes critical. Relevant advice may help to stem the flow of cash.

Hockey Photography with 18-200mm f3.5-f5.6 lens

Hockey Photography with 50mm f1.8 lens

Hockey Photography with 85mm f1.8 lens

Hockey Video Equipment

Shortly after I acquired my D80 I wanted to use it to shoot my son’s hockey games (I gave up trying to use film for hockey a long time ago). Not really the games, but rather practice sessions and pickup hockey. At his real games I have been using a video camera. That is an even more complicated story. Suffice to say video, is much more difficult than still photography for the same level of results. Video has its place but there’s nothing like a good photo. I’d like to be doing both video and stills at his games but I can’t get the females of the family to operate the video camera, something about too cold and boring.

Carleton U Rink, lighting Good: Settings - ISO180, 1/400sec, f1.8, 85mm

I knew the 18-200mm f3.5 – f5 lens that I had was not going to cut the mustard. Surely someone on the net must have written something that would help me figure out what I needed. No such luck, I searched and searched (I guess there just aren’t enough hockey players, or maybe they’re too busy playing to worry with cameras). I did learn that some professional photographers at NHL games had the entire rink wired with monster flashes but this wasn’t going to help me down at the local rinks. From my video experience I knew that “real” hockey rinks are not lighted for TV like NHL rinks, meaning I would need more expensive camera gear (just what my wife wanted to hear).

From the camera point of view hockey has several attributes that distinguish it from other sports. Weird crappy inconsistent dim artificial lighting. White background. High speed action at a medium distance. Surrounded by glass and boards. Nasty pucks. The white ice does provide one nice benefit by reflecting the light back up onto the subjects.

I was left to figure it out for myself. I borrowed an old 50mm f1.8 manual focus lens, stuck it on the D80 and went down to the rink. There were several things that needed to be researched: The first decision to be made was the location to shoot from. This starts with, through the glass or over the glass. Through the glass puts you at a similar height to the players giving a certain look to the photo’s, while over the glass, you get a similar perspective to that of the fans. Through the glass reduces the light by maybe a third of a stop and gives it a slight tint, not a big deal. The real kicker is the dirt and puck marks on the glass. NHL rinks, the glass is cleaned, real rinks the glass is never cleaned, so shooting through the glass is out.

Carleton U Rink, lighting Good: Settings - ISO180, 1/400sec, f1.8, 85mm

Shooting over the glass means you can’t stand in front of the fans or they will start throwing things at you. The fans tend to locate in the middle of the rink. You can either get a big lens and shoot from the stands with the fans or shoot from the ends of the rink. In many rinks you can’t stand at the ends because they are blocked off. You would also have to dodge flying pucks as they miss the goal. This leaves the corners, which by happen stance turns out to be the best position anyway. Most of the action happens in front of the goal. You might think that the best view would be from just beside the goalie where you would catch the offensive player making his shot. As it turns out there is usually a defense man’s big padded rear end in the way, after all, that is his job. So that leaves the sides, which is where the corner is located. The corner location has other advantages. The high glass behind the goal usually steps down to something a little less high, meaning you don’t have to bring a huge ladder to get over the lower glass. If you stand right at the step down you can easily hide behind the higher glass when an errant puck comes your way. The first time a puck makes a bee line for your head you will side step behind the high glass, smile and wave your one finger salute. One of those small three rung step ladders should get you over the top of the low glass.

Carleton U Rink, lighting Good: Settings - ISO200, 1/250sec, f1.8, 85mm

Now that you have a location, you must pick a focal length. My 18-200mm is not a bad choice for the DX sensor size of a D80. At 200 mm it takes you out to the center line There isn’t much need to go beyond, as superfluous players are usually blocking your sight. Close in, anything under the 18mm loses a lot of its usefulness because at these distances you will be looking down on the tops of the helmets (probably not the shot you’re looking for). Now the bad news, no one makes an 18-200mm lens that is fast enough so we’re going to have to come up with a compromise.

I don’t like to use shutter speeds below 1/1000 for most action sports such as hockey. Sure you can get some interesting effects with motion blur at lower shutter speeds, but you want the lower speeds to be optionally employed at the right time and not mandated by equipment limitations.

White balance is going to be tricky. The illumination in the rinks does not provide a consistent color temperature, the color spectrum is all over the place. About the best you can do is take a custom white balance for the area of the rink that you expect the most photos such as the slot. Point the camera at the ice in the slot and do the custom white balance.

My D80 at ISO 100 is not the most sensitive camera in the world, and to top it off, it starts to get really noisy beyond ISO 800. The lighting in an average rink gives me a camera setting that looks something like 1/500 second shutter with an f1.8 aperture and ISO 800 sensitivity. You’ll probably notice several things right off the bat. First we’re not up at 1/1000 of a second, meaning we are going to have issues with motion blur. Second, f1.8 is beyond the capabilities of most lenses. Third, we’re pushing the noise limits of the D80.

Carp Rink - Lighting Poor: Settings - ISO640, 1/640sec, f1.8, 85mm

It would take pages to give you all the rationalizations for the different lens choices. When making my choice I went through a great many. I don’t want to go through them now as I think anyone reading this would get bored and I know I would be bored silly writing.

Based on twenty hours shooting hockey from the corners I’m going to make this generalization. I think that roughly 80% of the good photo’s come in near the 85mm focal length. At shorter lengths the significant players are turned away from the camera and at longer lengths there are too many other players in the way. While a zoom lens may get you a few other shots you’re going to lose in cost and you are not going to get the big aperture. You guessed it. I selected an 85mm f1.8 auto focus prime lens. This lens gives an exposure that is just barely adequate in several areas.

Carp Rink - Lighting Poor: Settings - ISO400, 1/400sec, f1.8, 85mm

Now the bad news and I’ll say this, I don’t think the fault lies with the lens. The issue is that with f1.8 we have a shallow depth of field requiring good auto focus and the D80 just can’t keep up both in terms of acquiring initial focus as well as tracking the moving subject. The Nikor 85mm lens is internally focused meaning that internal elements move as it focuses at different distances and it is quite fast. Once the D80 decides to start driving the lens the lens gets where it needs to be reasonably fast. It seems to be the D80’s decision making lag time that is at fault. I find at least 50% of my shots are suffering from poor focus. To fix this problem I’m going to need a more expensive camera. Right now I can just see my wife refuting my careful logic with feminine precision even though there is nothing too good for our son. The next question I sometimes ask myself, just to be tormenting is…. If I had unlimited funds what lens would I get. In my imagination I now have the best professional camera from Canon or Nikon and I’m going to buy a lens for hockey. You know, I might just stick with the 85mm, to heck with the monster f2.8 zoom.

Here is a little tickler. The photos I like the best, have very little to do with the essential action of the game while my son only likes the action shots. Like fine wine, I suspect his viewpoint will change with age.

Until next time, “Keep Your Stick On The Ice” or at least tell your son to do it, it’s his stick.

No one in his right mind should be messing with cameras if he could still be playing hockey.

Addendum:

Observing my son, I’ve found that the sporting life of a youth can be a very intense experience. A photographic record can be much appreciated and can also build a powerful bond with the participating parent that should last for eternity.

With a little tickle, Paul Lester over on his blog has written a similar article to this but for basketball, it’s a great read, not only for basketball. Many of his insights can be applied to other action photography situations including hockey.

I’d appreciate it if anyone with an opinion, would contribute to this action photography/parent kid knowledge base, by adding their own voice through comments to these articles or other writings on the net. It would also be useful if we could establish some sort of linkage system between articles as I’m sure many of the experiences are mutually related.

Coach demonstrates good cross checking form, make sure he doesn’t get up.

GRC Rink, lighting Poor: Settings - ISO800, 1/160sec, f1.8, 85mm