Remose

[Sneaky0704]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcassady/2221129028/" title="Nashville Goalie Mason - Retouched by jim.cassady, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2405/2221129028_1d7867a460.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt="Nashville Goalie Mason - Retouched" /></a>


I took this just after the Blues scored a goal in their 5-2 lose against Nashville on Jan 19th. I did a little work on it in GIMP, there were some lines near his neck that I believe were reflections from the glass.

I don't think I got this as sharp as I would have liked.
Does the exposure look good on this? Nothing too blown out is there?


EXIF:
Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Lens: Sigma 55mm - 200mm f/4-5.6 (http://www.adorama.com/SG55200EOS.html)
Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 176 mm
ISO Speed: 800

[geotography]

Sneaky0704,

Nice shot. Thanks for sharing it and including your EXIF.

I see you were using some reach with your Sigma to capture this. Were you handholding or on a pod. I am thinking that the not-quite-focused thing you have may have been attributed to hand holding at your 176mm focal length. For me, it doesn't spoil the capture. Did you examine it closely with magnification? I will look forward to seeing what the more experienced reviewers say about your focus.

Another question: did you crop this. I find myself wanting his left arm in the image so I know more about what's going on. I find myself left with a curiosity about what he is looking at. You said somebody just scored; however, the photo should be telling the whole story without any written explanation.

Last comment is the top of the frame; I think most of it should be cropped. Now, looking again, I wonder if it should be cropped on the left side. Seems your subject is too centered.

Good capture. These comments are only my point of view as the viewer.

[ELAY]

Great capture. I am surprised that the lighting is good enough at the arena to allow you to shoot this at the settings you did.

Just looking at your settings, and reflecting on what Geotography said, I think you could have gotten a faster shutter if you had stoppped up higher. I am assuming that you could have at least gotten up to f/5.6, and maybe even a touch more open since you weren't zoomed all the way out. Quite apart from this shot (which actually looks pretty sharp to me), that setting would get you a quicker shutter in all your shots which might be good for hockey captures.

EL

[geotography]

So Elay, just want to affirm what I learn from your post. If he stopped up to the higher f/5.6 aperture, his shutter speed would have been adjusted upward to a level more equal to his 176mm focal length thereby compensating for any camera shake magnified at that length. Yes? Please forgive my rather fundamental affirmation...that's how I reinforce things in my brain.

[ELAY]

Yep.

I don't think I do the math -- but if he went to 5.6 or bigger, that lets in more light, so he could leave the shutter open for a shorter time.

EL

[Sneaky0704]

Hey, thanks for all the comments.

As for the crop, no it isn't cropped. I had to zoom in that close so I didn't have the bars holding the glass in place in the frame.

For the aperture, yeah I wish I would have looked at that before I shot. I was in shutter priority which I usually leave at 1/200 when I'm at the game to ensure I have the 1/focal length no matter how far out I am.

It just so happened that I was shotting to a corner that didn't have good light just before that shot so I cranked it down to 1/125. Really though there is a ton of light in the Scott Trade Center if you are in the lower bowl of the arena. If I can get more of the ice in frame I can sometimes set the ISO to 400 and still shoot 1/200 @ f5.6.

I'm not sure I'll have an opportunity like this one again. I bought a set of 4 glass level seats for that game as a gift and I was right behind the goal. I am glad that you guys like this one though. It makes the expense of the tickets worth while IMO.


EDIT: Just realized I'm a complete idiot and had a typo on the title of this thread. It should have been "Remorse".

[clockdoc]

You held the detail of the jersey well considering the white ice in the background. I would have thought the jersey would have provided a little more fill light. Concerning f/6.3 compared to f/5.6, I did a little computation for depth of field. I don't know how far you were from the subject so I arbitrarily selected 30 feet. At that distance and a focal length of 180mm (I rounded up from 176mm) on the XTi, here is what I found:
Subject distance 30 ft
Depth of field at f/5.6
Near limit 29.1 ft
Far limit 30.9 ft
Total 1.79 ft
At f/6.3 the total DOF only increases to 2 feet so dropping back to f/5.6 may have been acceptable unless the lens is known to be "unsharp" wide open.
At 50 feet and f/5.6 the DOF jumps to about 5 feet.
Here is the site I used for my calculations: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html