Yep, that’s right, what’s true for hockey teams is also true for hockey moms with new DSLRs: practice makes perfect!
A few days after I got my Canon, I headed out to the rink with DS#1 for one of our 90-minute Sunday practices. After getting DS ready, I asked the coach if I could shoot from the bench. He didn’t care, so I bounded over to the other side of the arena, eager to try my hand at shooting without the barrier of glass. Once I got to the bench, I pinched my hand when I stuck it through the opening to unlock the door. Then I waded through the disgusting remnants of the 40-and-over drop-in hockey that had just vacated the ice (I swear, do those men ever SKATE in between all that spitting?!), pulled out my bag, and then got myself set up to take pictures…only to discover that I had left my SD card in my laptop, which was still at home. Sigh. I then packed everything back up, trudged out to my car, and spent 30 minutes buying a new card at the local Meijer. I will tell you that since that day, I have never forgotten to check for my SD card before leaving the house. Having to navigate a spit-covered floor more than once will do that to you.
Here are some shots from that practice…
This is my DS doing a drill where he’s supposed to…well, act like the defenseman he is, ha ha! I THOUGHT that shooting without interference of glass would make my pictures spectacular. Ha! Clearly, the glass is not my only obstacle. I did learn a little more about the software that came with the camera, and the ability to make adjustments after the fact when shooting in RAW. At this point, I always shoot in RAW, because I am not skilled enough at taking pictures right the first time. :p Anyway, on the above picture, I upped the brightness by .83, the contrast by 2, the highlight by 2, and the shadow by 1. Not sure if that was really the way to do it, but I was playing for the most part.
This one’s not bad…a little bright, I think. I didn’t change the brightness in this one at all in post…maybe I should have toned it down a bit! Two up on the highlight and 2 up on the contrast for this. This is DS, by the way. I’m not sure if he’s listening intently to what the coach is saying, or just confused. :p
Definitely have some work to do. Very disappointed with how blurry this is. I had a lot like this, unfortunately. I increased brightness by .5, contrast and shadow both by 1. I should note that I just used Auto White Balance for all these shots. This is my biggest issue with my new camera–there are SO many settings, I just can’t remember when I’m supposed to use what for which! (I know…whine, whine, whine. If you can’t handle the settings, don’t buy the glass, blah blah blah.)
Now this one, I was rather happy with. Not perfect, but you definitely get the point of the shot here. Brightness increased by .50, contrast and shadow increased by 1 each. That’s my defenseman giving his teammate a nice little greeting during a drill.
This is one of my favorites. No action going on here, but I’m a big fan of the close-up shots where you can really capture the faces and expressions of the boys. Someday, he will be in high school or college playing hockey, or he might even be teaching his own kids to play the game, and his parents will be able to look back on this picture and remember their son playing hockey at nine years old. Awww…
DS#1 getting a chance to score for a change. This is a shot that makes me happy that I did buy a better camera. I could never have gotten a shot like this with my old one. Brightness: +.83, contrast and shadow: +1.
Argh. The kid on the right is the only one remotely in focus here. Ugh. Since first taking these photos, I’ve learned how to do some checking within the Canon software to figure out how I was shooting, and I can see that I used Tv mode and somehow had the focus set on the far right. Oops. Ah well…at least someone is in focus, ha ha! Brightness: +.83, contrast and shadow: +1.
That’s it for now! My next pictures will be rather fun…I had a chance to photograph my other (younger) son at a major NHL arena, and you can bet I was glad I had my DSLR for that! I’ll try to get that post up before next month, ha ha!
