Photographing Youth Ice Hockey and Figure Skating - Part 1 : Camera Equipment

As a parent of a children that participate in ice hockey and figure skating, I can unequivocally say that these are truly beautiful sports that offer wonderful and positive experiences. Effectively capturing these experiences through still photography poses many technical challenges, which are often compounded at the youth level by poor lighting. However, with proper technique, memorable images can be obtained. My goal in these series of articles is to share the techniques that I have developed for photographing youth ice hockey and figure skating in a manner that is both emotionally evocative and technically excellent.

Some equipment is required for photography, so let's first discuss camera bodies and lenses.

My typical equipment, from left to right, is a primary camera body (in my case a Nikon D700), a 400mm f/2.8 lens, a 200mm f/2 lens, a 1.4x tele-extender, a 70-200 f/2.8 zoom lens, a 135mm f/2 lens, a 17-55mm f/2.8 DX lens (or 24-84 mm f/2.8 - f/4 for FX camera bodies), and a backup camera body (in my case a Nikon D300). This range of focal lengths allows me to cover the action from long telephoto action shots to up-close feature photos. The use of large aperture lenses is essential. To illustrate this, lets look at the typical ambient light exposures that are obtained in an ice rink.

ISO=1600 : f-stop=f/2.8 : shutter speed=1/250
ISO=1600 : f-stop=f/4 : shutter speed=1/125
ISO=1600 : f-stop=f/5.6 : shutter speed=1/60

As the f-stop increases, the lens aperture decreases, and the shutter speed slows considerably in order to achieve the same exposure. A shutter speed of at least 1/250 is required to minimize motion blur, so an f/2.8 lens is essential. Now consider the possibilities that the Nikkor 200mm f/2 lens in combination with the Nikon D300 wold have in this same ice rink. The D300 can operate cleanly at an ISO of up to 3200, which yields the following camera settings:

ISO=3200 : f-stop=f/2 : shutter speed = 1/1000.

By using the Nikon D300 and the wonderful Nikkor 200mm f/2 lens, we can now operate at a shutter speed of 1/1000, which is more than sufficient to freeze fast action. The 200mm f/2 lens performs very well with a 1.4x teleconverter, which increases the reach of the lens by 40%, with the loss of one stop of light. The camera settings for this conbination is:

ISO=3200 : f-stop=f/2.8 : shutter speed = 1/500.
Now consider the Nikon D700, which can operate cleanly at an ISO of 6400, along with the 400mm f/2.8 lens:

ISO=6400 : f-stop=f/2.8 : shutter speed = 1/1000

Once again we have the same fast shutter speed, and this time with additional focal length to fill the frame with the action. The issue of focal length equivalence between DX bodies, such as the D300, and FX bodies, such as the D700, is understood by realizing that with the DX format, the sensor is 2/3 the size of a 35mm frame, and the equivalent focal length relative to a 35mm frame is multiplied by 1.5. So a 200mm lens on a DX camera body would fill the frame in the same manner that a 300mm focal length lens would on an FX body. Thus the 200mm f/2 lens with a 1.4x tele-extender would fill the frame of the DX sensor in the same way that a 420mm lens would on an FX camera body.

In the case of 400mm focal length operation, the D700 with the 400mm f/2.8 length has an advantage over the D300 with the 200mm f/2 + 1.4x TE combination in that a higher shutter speed can be used. Also, the image quality of the D700 at ISO 6400 is superior to that of the D300 at ISO 3200. For this reason, the D700 is my primary camera body.

In order the obtain sharp images with telephoto lenses, some attention needs to be paid to camera support systems, which will be the subject of the next blog post.