Shooting Hockey

Shooting hockey can be very difficult. Because of the brightness of the ice and boards, your pictures have a tendancy to be dark and the action blurred. Hopefully this will help you get better photos of your kids.

Set ISO to 800

Set your camera to TV or shutter priority depending on brand.

Set the shutter speed to 250

Take a meter reading of just the ice, and note what F-Stop the camera reads.

Set you camera to MANUAL, and set the shutter speed at 250, and the F-Stop to what the camera told you when reading the ice. ( If you are shooting little kids that don't skate fast, you can set shutter speed to 125)

Turn the F-Stop down(open wider) 2 F-Stops. Example, if F-Stop reads 11, open up to 5.6. Most zoom lenses will only open to a maximum of 5.6 when fully zoomed, so you must be aware that you CANNOT open (set) any wider than 5.6

If when you meter the ice, the camera does not read an F-Stop above 8, set your ISO to 1600 instead of 800. This will make it harder to do big enlargements, but will do a pretty good 5x7.

ALL OF THIS DEPENDS ON WHICH ARENA YOU SHOOT IN, AS SOME ARE DARKER THAN OTHERS. DARKER ARENAS NEED ISO1600.

You are trying to photograph one of the most difficult things, so it WILL be a learning experience. BE PATIENT.

If you have any questions, stop in at First Photo.