Camera policy in Lynah?

[David Harding]

OK gentlemen - you are both correct.   Age, if you want to start with a consistent image to post process, you're right.  That's if you're trying to get the same color renditions every time.  Bill, if you don't care about getting the exact same color every time, using auto white balance will get you close.  The camera will adjust (kind of, but it's not perfect).  I've tried both techniques and in the end there's work to be done either way.

I chuckle over all of this.  "Back in the day",(think 60s and early 70s) the lighting was truly poor.  There were "circles" of brighter light directly under the old (2 generations ago, I think) lights, about 20ft in diameter. At best we shot f2.8 @ 500th with Tri-X pushed to ISO (ASA) 1600+ that gave us a pretty grainy B/W image, but we printed it anyway. The few times I shot color, it was really tough.  Ectachrome 400 shot at 800 was barely acceptable and there wasn't a good way to correct the color.  Going to the old Boston Garden was a real treat!  Almost a full stop more light and holes in the glass in all the corners.  The local photographers didn't have to worry about that.  They could use the Garden's strobes...really powerful which were up in the rafters.   I never liked those images (lots of funny shadows), but it stopped the action!

At Lynah, we shot through the "green" glass behind the goals and in the corner.  Also from ladders above the glass and from the penalty box. I don't recall even thinking about wearing a helmet.  (Of course, the players didn't wear facemasks either.)  

Larry

And I'm trying to remember just when you had to start worrying about shooting through the glass.  Initially the protection at the ends was cyclone fence (that sometimes popped out of its frame) and there was nothing above the boards along the sides.

[Larry72]

David - I think we were in middle school or before!  I didn't start photographing hockey till high school!  Ugh - we're really showing our ages!!

Larry

[David Harding]

That sounds about right, Larry.  I was going to games without parental supervision.  Perhaps I'm remembering Saturday afternoon freshman games.  We would saunter in, sit in the front row of Section B, and have a great view.  Dave

[Andy Dodd]

That's about the worst thing you can do, since the white balance can change completely from shot to shot depending at where in the phasing the light that happens to be most prominent in your shot is. Whether you want stuff that night or next year, do what I said and set your white point to around 5000K. And neutral grey's won't make a damned bit of difference since it's always changing. If you set it on a neutral grey it will be based on whatever the light is doing at that instant.

Maybe I need to readjust my monitor's color temp settings, but 3900-4000K seems to be far closer to the mark.  That's taken from rough ice (NOT smooth!) at a slow shutter speed to average out the fluctuations.

At 1/160 (again, I need a faster lens...), I think I didn't see many problems due to that being only slightly shorter than a complete half cycle of AC.

I decided to trade noise for shutter speed and go up to ISO 2000 on Saturday and underexpose slightly to get to 1/250 - I was seeing some mild color variations of the lighting at this point, although not too bad (still at 1/4 of an AC cycle...)  Still it was varying around a center of around 3900-4000 or so, not 5000.

The uniforms come out to around 4200-4250, but if you set white balance on them EVERYTHING else has this sickly looking tinge to it.  If you set WB off of rough ice, the uniforms are slightly bluish but not too bad.  My guess, as before, is that they're using one of the many detergents out there that fluoresce slightly to make clothes "extra bright" to the human eye (but completely throw off cameras).

I'll start uploading to my SmugMug account tonight.

[billhoward]

If your choice is a shutter speed less than 1/250 second or picking up noise pushng the ISO way, way up, I think you have to live with the image noise, which includes those little red green blue dots that are noticeable in some of the areas that should be uniform black. There are a couple tools that reduce noise such as Noise Ninja but only to a point. Another cheat is the fill light or so-called fill flash setting in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Picasa that lightens the shadows nicely; just don't overdo it (I'll lighten until the effect is clearly visible then scale back to half the setting). These are quick and dirty fixes.

[Andy Dodd]

Yeah, the higher shutter speed (and slightly greater noise) from the second night worked far better in terms of keeping things sharp.

Color shifting at 1/250 isn't too bad.

I'll need a faster lens to consider higher shutter speeds though.  I have been tempted off and on by the Sigma and Tamron 70-200/2.8 lenses, but Sigma just announced that they're refreshing their 70-200 by adding optical stabilization so I'm going to hold off even longer.  While I do get sensor-shift stabilization with any lens on my body (Pentax K20D), in-lens stabilization is very nice for framing and focusing.

I have seen that some arenas have ceiling-mounted strobes.  I know Princeton had it at a game many years ago.  I think it might be a permanent fixture, as it wasn't a playoff game or anything like that.  That (or upgraded high frequency ballasts for the existing lighting) would be nice at Lynah.  Since most of us mortals couldn't use the strobes, HF ballasts will at least be an improvement.    Cornell could do it under the auspices of "going green" since if I recall correctly, newer ballasts also have power factor correction.

[billhoward]

Pro sports photographer named Guy Rhodes did some interesting tests trying to see what worked best for color balance under artificial lighting. As you can see below, nothing was on the nose unless you dropped the shutter speed to 1/60 second, at which point your only choice doing sports is to shoot artistic pans or the players waiting for a faceoff.

See his explanation at http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=20873. He tried all sorts of stuff such as doing a custom white balance at 1/30 and then using that at 1/500 - didn't work. He also went down the same route I've used, automatic white balance and that wasn't very successful either (one row up from the bottom). As Rhodes said, "I had to eat my own words when I tried auto white balance (row 4) as my next test. Colors still shifted through the burst, despite my thoughts that the camera would analyze each frame as it was shot." To my eyes, the AWB wasn't terrible. Four of the five frames seem within the realm of acceptability, but the third frame was well off. So you definitely also want to think about Age's preference: Pick a fixed color temperature of around 5000 Kelvin.

I will be corrected if wrong, but to put in better quality lamps (bulbs) that would be enviromentally green and color-corrected white, I believe you need more than a ladder -- you also have to replace the fixtures. So it's not cheap.

[clear]

In the following comparison between white balance methods, I shot the back of white sync-slate with color chips on the sticks under a typical fluorescent light fixture. I chose to use 1/500th of a second shutter speed, the ideal "bare minimum" that I'd use for fast action sports that might be shot under discharge lighting (football, basketball, etc.). I shot a burst of six images at eight frames per second using a Canon 1D MarkII. ... As you can see in rows one and two, the color is all over the place throughout the burst with both fluorscent (row 1) and tungsten (row 2) white balances. As someone suggested in a separate thread, I slowed down to 1/30th of a second (slower than the 60Hz cycling of the light), and performed a custom white balance off the white portion of the sync slate. Running the shutter back up to 1/500th and shooting another burst (row 3) revealed the same color shifting anomaly, because again, we're still locked into one white balance (albeit a custom one) as the color of the lights goes up and down, up and down. Custom white balancing will NOT solve color shifting under discharge lights at high shutter speeds, even if you custom white balance at a speed slower than the cycle, as illustrated here. I had to eat my own words when I tried auto white balance (row 4) as my next test. Colors still shifted through the burst, despite my thoughts that the camera would analyze each frame as it was shot. The only way I was able to get consistent color in a burst under the fluorescent light (row 5) was to slow down the shutter speed to equal that of the cycling, which in the United States, would mean setting the camera to 1/60th or slower. This would be fine for shooting features in an office, but would hardly be adequate for available light action sports. This experiment serves as further fuel for my loathing of discharge lighting fixtures, and the reason why I'll drag strobes to every indoor (and sometimes outdoor) sport I shoot where I know discharge light fixtures will be present.

[billhoward]

Quinnipiac also has strobes in the light bank. A full set to light the entire arena will run you $20,000. (A drop in the bucket vs. the $53 million Q spent for the hockey/hoops facility.) An acquaintance who shoots for the NJ Devils carries a pack of two on tall tripods when he shoots arena sports elswhere eg HS or college hockey and wants to light up one end of the rink. That's about $2,500 in gear. Arena strobes or sports strobes have very short flash duration, both to stop the action better and to be less annoying to fans and TV cameras. The NCAA requires they be quicker than 1/1000 second (is there anything they dont' have rules on?) and many are quicker (shorter duration) than 1/2000. They also recycle quickly vs. ones you put in the studio but it's still one shot every three seconds. I talked to the president of Dynalite at a trade show and he said used strobes pretty much work fine, except you may have to replace a worn bulb. (And I wonder about the quality of the powerpack if you cycle shots faster than recommended.) Dynalite is big in the arena strobe business; most people consider Speedotron the top brand.

Some photographers on budgets use a couple of high-end Nikon or Canon strobes and get reasonable results, but these are still $400 apiece, you need to buy a battery booster pack for $100-$150 extra, and you need remote radio triggers (Pocket Wizards) that run $150-$200 per flash plus one for the camera. (They're the things that look black cigarette packs atop the camera hot shoe with a radio antenna.) For everybody who says, I'm gonna shoot flash, there's another who realizes, At that price, I'm going to have another go with available light and Photoshop."

[Jim Hyla]

I know Age likes this, but John Spencer it?:-D Actually it's interesting.

[Andy Dodd]

At 1/250 it is not even remotely close to a bad as the examples above.  It becomes noticeable, but not awful.

Going to start my first SmugMug upload when I go to bed tonight...  Stupid slow Time Warner upstream!

John Spencer?  (Oh, the offtopic forum...   )

As to the "remote portable strobes" approach - TTL seems like asking for trouble in a "tough" exposure situation (Because the brightness was reasonably consistent to around +/- half a stop except at the very edges of the arena on the ends, I shot in manual exposure mode for the entirety of both games.)  Remove TTL from the picture and the price per strobe for 60WS units drops to a shade over $100.  I actually own three hotshoe strobes (One fullblown TTL one, and two $100 manual-only specials) and radio triggers for them (although they're the first-generation "poverty wizards" from China.  The latest generation perform MUCH better, almost as good as PWs based on reviews I've read.)  However I think that setup is a good way to get the boot from Lynah.  

I would have thought that getting the strobes away from the athlete's sightlines would be more important than limiting flash duration - Even 30WS in your eyes is going to be pretty damn distracting.  Well, those are the rules.  Right now from looking at monoblocs, most actually get slower as you drop the power (since unlike hotshoe flashes that use a quench circuit, monoblocs usually change the charge level itself).  All this is of course theoretical, I'm assuming anyone here is going to be stuck with available light.

[marty]

There are some strobes in the ceilings at the TU Center in Albany.  Are these for photography?  I couldn't figure out what the hell they were.  I think I have noticed them for the past two years.  Firing seemed to be random, but was noticeable.

[Andy Dodd]

Can't think of any other reason for strobes to be popping in a hockey arena.  The "randomness" is whenever the photographer is taking a shot - most likely they use the aforementioned Pocket Wizards, although one transmitter on the camera and one receiver connected to a common trigger for all strobes.

Hmm, I wonder how many WS you'd need to cover an entire arena...

[CowbellGuy]

There are some strobes in the ceilings at the TU Center in Albany.  Are these for photography?  I couldn't figure out what the hell they were.  I think I have noticed them for the past two years.  Firing seemed to be random, but was noticeable.

The official rink photographer uses them. He's also an ass, but that's beside the point.

[billhoward]

Yes, this is drifting, but it sort of started out related to men's hockey. The Pocket Wizard the pros use (it's a brand that dominates the market but the name is also used generically, like Xerox as a verb used to be) triggers the flash and you set them to manual. Just out are Pocket Wizards meant for Canon (one model) and Nikon (second model)and they actually do multiple strobe TTL measurements. It's more useful for fashion photographers or dedicated amateurs. If you set up lights on stands at a rink you just do a couple test shots, and that's that.

[Andy Dodd]

I finally uploaded Friday's pictures - http://andydodd.smugmug.com/Cornell/Hockey/ECAC-Quarterfinals-vs-Harvard/11533582_5SpmW#812068961_mLfZe

I didn't spend too much time sorting through them, so there are a reasonable amount of dupes/uninteresting pictures.  The white balance came out quite well, at least when at 1/160

I'll try to have Saturday's up tonight.  I was at 1/250 shutter speed most of that game, and there were some noticeable color shifts but nothing especially bad.  Probably only 200-300K +/- variation.

I definately need a lot of practice and a better lens next year.