Shooting Broomball in a hockey arena??

[Spearing Machine]

Hey Guys,

I am thinking about lugging the gear along tonight to the annual heated broom-ball battle between the Wildlife society and fisheries society vs. society of American foresters and fire crew. I probably will play for a little while and then step back and see if I can get a few keeper shots for the club albums. I have never done any shooting inside of a hockey arena before and was wondering if anyone had any tips or pointers for me. What would be a good starting point for settings( using AV mode)..(aperture, iso)?? I will be using the 30D with the 70-200 f4 is and the 17-85. Thanks in advance!

[Steve Foss]

Jeremy, if you are comfortable using the histogram to adjust and use manual exposure mode, do that. Lighting in hockey arenas I've shot has been generally pretty bright and uniform, and that makes for good things when it comes to manual exposure.

How I do it is set iso to 3200, then set the camera to Av mode with the aperture wide open and take a shot and look at the histogram on the back of the camera. You can adjust exposure using the EC dial until the faces look just right. You may then see some blowout of white jerseys, but in sports some of that's OK. So once you gotten the setting dialed in, switch the knob to M for manual and duplicate those shutter speed and aperture settings.

The 70-200 f4 lens is OK for that. f2.8 would be better, but ya gotta dance with what ya got.

You are going to want shutter speeds of at least 1/250, and faster would be better. You'll also be getting good practice for panning, which applies as much to birds in flight as it does athletics (although broomball ain't the fastest moving sport in the world).

If you are not comfortable shooting manual, just shoot in Av at iso3200 and make sure your aperture is wide open. You'll also want to be sure to select the center focus point and use Ai servo focus mode.

[bturck]

Holy cow Steve. For someone with no knowledge of cameras that was quite an education. I'd be lying if I said I got all on the first or even the 3rd reading. Apparently a little more going on here than my disposable camera LOL.

[Spearing Machine]

Awesome! Thanks for the quick help Steve!! Pulled out the camera and made sure I had the correct settings in the custom functions and I think I will be good to go now.

So, once you switch over to manual mode you adjust the camera to the settings you got in AV mode, correct?

Hopefully I can have some results to share tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what I can come out with. But I have to start someplace.

[Steve Foss]

So, once you switch over to manual mode you adjust the camera to the settings you got in AV mode, correct?

Correct!

When using the histogram to get your Av settings dialed in, you need to use the EC dial to adjust exposure in order to keep your aperture wide open. Once you've got it set, then you switch to manual and duplicate those settings.

Also, once your settings are finalized in manual mode, I'd turn the power lever to the "on" position, not the position all the way up. That disables the rear dial, which is a good thing, because in the heat of the moment you might find yourself accidentally bumping the dial and changing aperture, and before you realize if you've blown out or underexposed a whole series of photographs.

[Spearing Machine]

Alright! It is all starting to make sense now!! I thought I had that problem once already with the back dial, I bet that solves the problem! Thanks again Steve!

[Steve Foss]

No prob, Jeremy. Good luck tonight, and I'm assuming you'll show us the goods?

[Dbl]

I set up a bit different than Steve but won't expound on that since you likely don't need any more options! If I may give you a few observations and tips to hopefully help.

You will likely find most arenas not the well lit and a stop or two difference in lighting at various parts of the rink. Not a whole lot you can do about it with your equipment. A normal hockey rink in the metro area and the out state ones I've shot in you would be lucky to get 1/320s at 3200 ISO and f2.8. Since it is broom ball and not fast moving hockey you might get away with 1/250s and get acceptable results.

The other big factor for you is going to be the type of lights the rink has. Some have fluorescent (green light), sodium vapor (orange light) or something completely different. White balance is going to be an issue for you for sure. A couple of ways to tackle that, if it is fluorescent you may get away with just setting the white balance on your camera to the fluorescent setting. On rare occasions even auto white balance will work with these lights.

If you have sodium vapor or tungsten of some form you will have a few more problems. These lights are not uniform color, they actually cycle through red and green at speeds faster than the eye can detect...but the camera will! Two things usually work best here, auto white balance (maybe) or just using a custom white balance. This is not as scary as it seems. Typically when I shoot an arena I use a custom white balance period. If I've shot in the venue before I will actually use a K temp, its one of the options in your white balance settings. If you know what color temp the lights are(from previous shoots) just dial in the K temp and start shooting.

This won't be the case for you so I would suggest taking a custom white balance. Here is the best way to do that.

1. Set your ISO to 100, put the camera in Tv mode, set 1/30s shutter speed, don't worry about what the aperture is unless it is blinking saying I need more light! Then just up the ISO to 200 or so. It really is not that important, you just want to get close.

2. Point the camera at the sheet of ice that has no lines running through it, no blue lines, red lines, face off circle, you know what I mean. Make sure the lens is out of focus and go ahead and take a shot.

3. Using your menu button (I think you are shooting Canon) under one of the red tabs (depends on camera) you will find an option for Custom WB. When you push the set button the shot you just took will now show up on the LCD. Push your set button again and this will now be your CWB shot.

4. You now need to go to the menu or dial on your camera to change the white balance setting the camera will use. You want to select the one that looks like a flower.

Take a shot and see how the color looks. If you are not happy set the camera back to AWB and take a shot at a different spot on the ice and go through the above steps again until you are happy with how the colors look. It may take a few trys, depends on the rink.

You are now ready to set your camera in manual mode back to the settings you wanted for exposure. You can now shoot away. Keep in mind many of these rinks the lighting is so bad you will still get color shifts from the lights. Really nothing you can do about that, you just have to live with it.

The reason for setting 1/30s on your shutter speed when doing the Custom White Balance shot is the lights operate at 60hz cycles and by shooting at 1/30s or slower you actually catch the coloring of the lights through one complete cycle. This will give you much better results than shooting at a high shutter speed and capturing the color of the light at one point of its cycle.

This may all seem complicated but I assure you it is not. Try it at home a few times. Take a piece of white paper, lay it on the floor and try and fill the frame with all white paper in the shot. Go through the steps above and try it a few times. Take a couple of shots and see how they turn out with your new CWB. If you do this before you get to the rink you will be very comfortable with doing it on the fly.

I almost always use a CWB for all of my shooting. With strobes and flashes and mixed lighting it is mandatory to get accurate colors. I find even outdoors I will use a CWB. I carry a collapsible white balance and exposure disk, it fits in my pocket so its a matter of a quick shot to get correct color and exposure.

Good luck tomorrow, I'm sure you will have some great shots.

[Steve Foss]

Jeremy, I'd also reinforce one comment Dan made. If you find the lighting not even, switch to Av mode and keep it there. If lighting has variation of two stops within the playing area, manual exposure will cause you more trouble than it's worth.

Good white balance tutorial from Dan!

If I remember correctly, the lights at that monster youth hockey league tourney Ken and I shot in Duluth last season were metal halide. Can't remember for sure if that was the case, but I know we put the WB preset on 4200, which is an option on the camera, and it was smack on. We captured many, many thousands of images during that three-day tourney, and if memory serves Ken didn't have to fool with the WB in post-processing for any of them. Both arenas had nice bright, even lighting, which of course was a help.

[MN Shutterbug]

Did you get all that?

I have one question re: white balance. If a person has the time and doesn't shoot 1000 pics, why not just shoot in RAW and change the WB via software?

[Steve Foss]

Did you get all that?

I have one question re: white balance. If a person has the time and doesn't shoot 1000 pics, why not just shoot in RAW and change the WB via software?

You don't need to shoot in RAW anymore to do that. CS3, CS4 allow all those kinds of manipulation on jpegs, too. But you really already answered your own question when you brought up image volume. If you are shooting a sporting event for clients and are shooting a lot, you will save a lot of post-processing time in front of the computer by nailing down your WB in advance. If you're only going to be processing 20 or 30 images, it's not as big a deal.

The other things is, automatic white balance can yield some fluky results on different images even within the same burst, so changing the WB on an image captured with AWB doesn't guarantee that all the other images will need the same WB change. Lightroom and CS versions allow you to change WB and other settings in big batches, but if some images on AWB are off in one direction and others are off in a different direction, you're back to touching each individual image instead of allowing the batch process to save you time.

Of course, if lighting is badly uneven, you'll likely have to touch the images more than under even lighting, but in the long run with lots of images you'll have less work to do using a preset WB or custom WB than if you use AWB and let the camera make the choice.

[MN Shutterbug]

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Originally Posted By: X-tackleman

Did you get all that?

I have one question re: white balance. If a person has the time and doesn't shoot 1000 pics, why not just shoot in RAW and change the WB via software?

You don't need to shoot in RAW anymore to do that. CS3, CS4 allow all those kinds of manipulation on jpegs, too.

There again, my money tree needs to start growing a litte faster. I only have CS2.

[Steve Foss]

There again, my money tree needs to start growing a litte faster. I only have CS2.

The ability to manipulate jpeg images on a preview screen, which was only available with RAW images before CS3, was the prime reason I shelled out the $60 (evilbay, new in the box).

[Dbl]

Well personally I don't think you get as good of a result when you decide to "fix it in post"! That seems to be the overriding thing I see and or hear these days. I'll just fix it later! That may work well but if you want the optimum results from your work I say shoot it correct in the camera. Steve already mentioned a few valid reasons why I like it right in camera.

That is my own personal old school opinion for whatever that is worth.

[Dbl]

I will also add to what Steve said in using AWB, when lighting is really bad I often will have better results from AWB than a Custom white balance. I do both and then preview the shots and pick which I like better.

A good way to check color accuracy is to get your camera set up for proper exposure and just hold down the shutter button and let the camera fire off its max frame per second capability for a second or two. Do this with both CWB and AWB. Use your preview on the LCD that shows 9 frames in the LCD. You will quickly see which of the two gives your the best results.

[Spearing Machine]

AHHHHHHH!!!! I head out for class and come back two hours later and now I am lost. I have never done anything with the white balance before so looks like I might be doing more experimenting than anything. But nothing wrong with that I guess.

As far as lighting is concerned the Willet Ice Arena here in Stevens Point has "Big, Bright, White lights". Thats as much of an electrician that I am! :-) I think I will jot down some of the key points you guys gave me and see what I might be able to do with them. I dont think anyone would have guessed that this "sport" could get so complex and involve so many different variables But that's what makes it fun and you never get to stop learning.

[Steve Foss]

Jeremy, if it's all coming at you too fast to assimilate in the time you have before you head to the arena, don't worry about it. Just put your white balance on AWB and go from there. It's not likely you'll be processing a ton of individual images from the game, so white balance uniformity isn't as big an issue for you.

If you have a version of Photoshop that requires a RAW capture in order to use the preview screen, I'd shoot in RAW so you can easily adjust the WB in post processing.

I agree wholeheartedly with Dan that it's always best to make your captures as good as they can be regarding white balance and other factors, but it takes time to make one's way through the learning curve, so don't feel like you have to take all this advice at once. Too big a bite and you'll choke trying to swallow it down.

Great news the arena is bright. That helps you a lot. I'll be really interested to see what type of shutter speeds you can get at iso3200 and f4.

[MN Shutterbug]

Messing with the WB is something new to me, too. For my types of shooting, it's never been a big deal. As I branch out into other venues, it well could be something I will have to learn. I've been playing around with it a little this afternoon, and it's quite interesting. Back in the day of 35mm, white balance couldn't be controlled in camera and a person had to rely on processing labs to color correct properly. Things have sure changed.

Good luck and I'll anxiously be awaiting your results. Don't worry. No one will be expecting perfection. Enjoy and learn.

[finnbay]

Whoa! Lots of good info and tutorials here. Nothing for me to add except I concur with both Steve and Dan. It sounds like a lot, and it is to take in at one time, but take it a little at a time and get feeling comfortable step by step. The processes they are talking about take about 90 seconds to do when you get used to them. They eventually become second nature. Photoshop and Lightroom are wonderful, but getting it right in the camera saves a TON of work later and is worth the time. The hockey tourney shoot that Steve mentioned saw us taking about 30,000 shots in 4 days, eventually posting about 15,000 of them. To go through and be consistent in PP'ing all of those would be a nightmare even with batching. Good luck!

[Spearing Machine]

Well I was able to rip off a couple hundred shots last night after playing for the first half of the game. I guess the results are nothing at all special and I am kind of neutral on if they are good or bad. I am waiting for christmas to hopefully get a postprocessing program which may help some but like earlier stated you cant depend on PP for everything its better to get it right the first time in the camera.

I ended up shooting in manual WB mode of florescent lighting as its what looked the best and from my best guess that is what the lighting was in the arena. Exposure compensation kind of skipped my mind and I never really figured for it so it would have helped in lightening or darkening some shots. While shooting at H (iso 3200) and F4 I was getting shutter speeds anywhere from 1/500 all the way up to 1/3200 on a few. If it would help I can go back through and get the exif data for the posted shots if it helps for CC.

Here are a handful of the ones that are a little better than others. Not horrible for my first indoor shoot especially for a fast moving sport. Whats on the list to work on, adjust, ect. Feel free to edit, or tweek photos if it helps to make a point!

[Dbl]

Well heck, those look pretty darn good! I think you did well with using the fluorescent white balance, it is not all that far off with the colors. Exposure ranged all over the place because at times you will have more ice in the shot which the camera sees as a nice bright subject. It raises the shutter speed to compensate and that results in your subject (the players) to be underexposed. That is why I recommended shooting manual when shooting in a rink. It is way to easy to fool the camera with dark spectator areas and white ice. The last shot is a good example of that, more than 2/3 of your shot is ice or white boards, that gives you an underexposed shot.

You may have areas of the rink as I mentioned that might be a stop or two different than other areas but after you practice a while you can change you camera to compensate on the fly. I say great job, you should consider this a success!

I did take your last shot color corrected and added a slight curves adjustment to bring the exposure into line. Here is a 5 second edit to show you what a little post processing will do for you. This is probably closer to what you actually saw. The fluorescent WB is a bit cool.

Original

Edit

[Steve Foss]

Really nice work, Jeremy.

Once you get photoshop you'll have a whole new world of fun to explore.

Dan said it all!

[MN Shutterbug]

Bravo. You done well.

The first thing I noticed was the blueish cast (coolness), and a bit of underexposure. As Dan showed you, it didn't take much to correct. You were quite close. I'm just surprised at you being to shoot at that high of a shutter speed. That must be a bright arena.

Way to go.