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Best lens for a hockey arena for Rebel XT or 30D

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I would first check out the arena were your son is going to play most of his games. I have shot hundreds of hockey pictures and the 70-200 2.8 lens works well. I usualy get 1/250 to 1/500 a sec at iso 800 at F2.8 at most rinks. Some poorly lit rinks you mite have to go to iso 1200 or so. Here are 2 shots both at iso 800 F2.8. I really would go with a zoom as a prime would really restrict your ability to frame the shot well. But if your home rink is one of those poorly lit rinks then a prime mite be the only way to go.





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http://www.pbase.com/dc9mm

 
70-200 2.8 is the perfect hockey lens. From center ice you get perfect coverage from one end of the rink to the other. 2.8 is plenty fast unless you have an extremely dismall rink.

sean
 
Here is a shot I took with my 135 2.0 lens. I had a 1.4X teleconverter on it. I have not done any photoediting yet.

ttp: static.flickr.com/70/217006378_9e34fbf892.jpg?v=0/medium.jpg

Julie
 
If you take the USA Hockey Level 1 coaching course and have the team add you as a coach, you can shoot from the bench or the penality box with a EF135L-2.0.
The EF70-200-2.8 will permit you to shoot from one end and cover rink.

CAUTION: IF your player is Bantam or above the Servo and Auto Focus will be unable to keep-up.
 
It'll give you a bit of reach on a cropped sensor, and a fast aperture. Not as sharp wide open as the 135 f2, but 1/2 the cost.

I got some really good ones in the past with this on a 10D. Got a lot of discards too--the AF was a bit hit&miss wide open. Light is an issue with most community arenas. Intensity and colour vary quite a bit.

This and the 50mm are great if you have the run of the arena.

Si.
 
Julie, if you have the light, you need to open up more. Ideally you want the ice on the verge of blowing out. That will give you a lot more face detail. I think Dan's photos are too dark too.

Here's what I mean. Shot with a 10D, 70-200 f/2.8, ISO1600, 1/400.



Mark
 
Do you mean the aperature when you say wide open? Sorry.......just a beginner.

I love this shot. The player seems to jump out, excellent! I hope I will be able to take a picture like this with my Digital Rebel XT.

Thanks for the input.

Julie
 
sage
 
Sorry, I was kind of ambiguous.

You need a different exposure. You probably took your photo at ISO1600, 135mm at f/2 with the 1.4TC? Let's say your shutter speed was 1/500.

To make the scene brighter, you can't change the lens aperture (you are already wide open), and I wouldn't got any higher in ISO. So drop down to 1/400 or 1/320. Or maybe your rink is really dim, and you can't use the TC there, and you need to be at f/2. My kids' teams play in a couple of rinks with great lighting, and several with lousy lighting. I've gotten to the point where I don't waste my time anymore at the dim rinks.

Shooting wide open also lets you get that jumping out effect, leaving the background out of focus.

One last thing. Did you set a custom white balance? Expose off the ice and use that for white balance. It will give you much better color that auto white balance.

To see what's possible with a 10D and the 70-200, here are my daughter's Squirt team's galleries:
http://msalvetti.smugmug.com/Sports/112743

And my son's Bantam team:
http://msalvetti.smugmug.com/Sports/175830

Bantam photos were all from the bench. Most of the squirts were through the glass.

Hope this helps,

Mark
 
A fixed focal length long telephoto lens is a bad idea for sports photography when you are close to the action.

I'm amazed people suggested it in the first place.

BAK
 
J Ouellet said:
Here is a shot I took with my 135 2.0 lens. I had a 1.4X
teleconverter on it. I have not done any photoediting yet.

Click to expand...
Julie using the 1.4x TC drops the 135mm F2 a full stop you wind up with a 189mm F2.8. In that case I think you would be better served with the versatility of a zoom like 70-200mm F2.8. Canon does not make a zoom faster then F2.8.. The Idea of using a faster lens is to enable you to use a faster shutter speed to help stop the motion blur associated with slow shutter speed. Your shot look like the player was standing still you could use just about any lens to get a shot like that.

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JJMack
 
A few tips. You want to shoot with the lens wide open so aperture priority with aperture set f2 or f2.8 if your using the 1.4x. The distance should give you an acceptable depth of field when focus is right. Try AI Focus and One Shoot see which works best for you. AI might be better for you particularly if you do a lot of panning following the fast action of hockey. You want a shutter speed to stop the action 1/400 or faster set the ISO high enough to get acceptable shutter speed. Try to avoid ISO 3200 if possible. If you need ISO 1600 or 3200 buy a noise reduction program like NeatImage to remove some noise during post processing.
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JJMack
 
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