A Long Winter Brightened by Hockey

Beyond our infamous mayor and the unusually long winter, hockey is always a part of our conversation in Toronto. Beyond the city having the Leafs and Marlies at the professional level (the Marlies offering an exciting brand of hockey both affordable and attainable), the city has the most outdoor rinks anywhere along with numerous recreational leagues.

My wife plays in a women’s league (that’s her by the goalie) every Saturday night at Moss Park and I often bring my camera in tow. I get to wander around the rink and, at times, break a few “rules” slipping behind the bench for the only shots I can take that are not through glass. Everyone seems to appreciate that they can get photographs of themselves playing hockey.

While I usually shoot in aperture priority, I shoot hockey in manual. The lighting doesn’t change in the rink so I don’t want my camera “fooled” when I zoom in or out, having more or less of all that white ice affecting the sensor. I try for a shutter speed of 1/125 but have to crank up the ISO if I’m using my 70-300mm f4.0-5.6 zoom. Lately I switched to the 105mm f2.8 to drop the ISO down and I find I’m not giving up too much. I’m no longer being lazy and trying to shoot the entire arena from one spot – now I focus on one area of the rink.

I’m having some fun with the photos running them through NIK’s Color Effects (detail) to bring out some “grunge” in the photo. Being on the ice has a feel to it; a scent despite being made of odorless water. You can be tired but once you get on the ice and take a deep breath, you feel rejuvinated. I think this brings me closer to that feeling.

Ripley’s Aquarium

“We’re going to the aquarium.”

We had guests for the weekend and the new Ripley’s Aquarium in downtown Toronto was on the Saturday afternoon agenda. Something new to photograph always gets my attention.

I grabbed my camera along with my 50mm f1.4 and 105mm f2.8 macro and joined what turned out to be a line that extended out the door and around the corner. Both new and getting great press, I would recommend buying tickets online for a specific entrance time and by-passing the line.

The aquarium has a route you follow and despite the crowd (start of March break, Saturday afternoon) we were able to approach each tank with a little patience. The ambient light is very low, accenting the light in the tanks and I had to shoot at ISO3200 to get the shutter speed I wanted, foregoing depth of field.

As we wandered through the “path,” we came to a slow moving sidewalk, which takes you right through a large tank, surrounded by sharks, mantas and all sorts of fish. There were times I felt I could just reach up and touch one moving overhead. This is quite a big, winding “ride” and allows you to experience the tank without waiting for people in front to move along. There is a separate walkway should you wish to return and explore at a slower pace.

I cleaned up the photos using NIK Define to reduce noise and fussed with the color temperature – some tanks have changing colored lights – and the rest was done in Lightroom.

I highly recommend a visit, though for the experience more than for the photo opportunities. It was a fun day and after close to three hours, we were never bored or put off (much) by the crowd.

 

 

 

A different approach to hockey photos

My wife’s hockey team is in the midst of their playoffs. I was banned from taking pictures from the bench when they introduced a rule requiring everyone on the bench to have a helmet, though in all the games I’ve been to this rule is randomly enforce. Regardless, I was left to shooting through heavily marked glass and more recently, a “fog” that is on the inside making photography more challenging than I wish for.

With the season coming to a rapid conclusion, I decided to “hang” around the benches and start to “creep” into the door at the rear, giving me a fairly clean look at centre ice and one end. I would then travel between the two benches to get the different ends of the ice. I’m pleased to say I got away with it. This time.

Back in my digital darkroom, I started “playing” with some of the filters in Color Effects by NIK Software. I started to get an interesting look. Sort of a watercolour with an old-style hockey feel to it. There is a “detail” filter I use and combine it with some vinetting (light and dark) to enhance the subject.

I like the look. It’s a little different for an action shot. As an experiment, I even took a rapid set of photographs while the players were “still” for a faceoff to try an HDR. The state of alignment with HDR software these days gave me a pretty good image, though getting ready for a faceoff isn’t my idea of a captivating image. Still, I can keep an eye out.

At the rink, I shoot on a D300s (crop sensor) using a 70-300mm at f5.6 in manual. The lighting is fairly even across the rink but I shoot in manual so the exposure doesn’t vary as the amount of white ice in the picture increases or decreases. The ISO is 1600 and I use NIK Define to reduce the noise before I run it through any of the creative filters.

I would appreciate any comments you have on the photographs and if interested, can provide more specific information about the steps I took and the filters I used.

So many changes

I’ve been making changes. I was working with Adobe CS4 for over four years and wanted to upgrade to CS6 for a while but first needed to upgrade my equally old IMac. Apple released some new IMacs in November of 2012 so I decided to make the move in January and now sport a new, much faster computer with the latest version of Photoshop.

Not enough change. I decided to use Lightroom instead of Bridge to give me better management over my growing library of photographs. So I am now learning a new interface and workflow in addition to all the new features in CS6.

Not enough change. I added NIK software’s products. Since I teach at a local college, I am able to get academic discounts for both hardware (minimal) and software (about half price), so I’ve invested in some tools while the price is right. The NIK software tools integrate nicely into Photoshop and Lightroom; I haven’t tried them with Aperture as yet. I still use Aperture as a final “library” as it is integrated with all my other tools (two IPhones, two IPads, AppleTV, ICloud, etc.).

Which brings me to the photograph above. It is a photo I took on my trip to Italy last year. I’m going through all my photographs looking for low-light samples for a book I am writing on the subject and came across this one. I decided to experiement with some of my new software and this was the result. I love the original version taken at dusk on a long walk through Rome, but I also like the look of this more artistic style. In some ways, it reminds me more of how I remember the square than the original.

Perhaps it’s just the way my mind works.

I would love to hear any comments you have around extensive manipulation or editing of photographs. I am a huge fan of “art” in its many forms and look at any “picture” as the artist’s expression, whether it be “realistic” or “interpretive.”