Hockey/white balance

[rhoneg]

I love the action shots of hockey but I am frustrated w/all the challenges of the lighting, plexiglass etc. Someone who was at the rink mentioned that they take a white balance measurement first by focusing on the ice and then they're all set, what did they mean? Sometimes the ice comes out yellow, pink which I thought was due to the type of lighting. Any help on what settings to use for this situation would help. I have tried many and so far sports mode has been the clearest. thanks sue

[smc1377]

Depending on your camera, their advice might or might not apply.

On some (maybe even most) cameras, when you press your shutter button down halfway, not only does it focus lock, it'll also lock the white balance, the exposure, the aperture, etc. That's when the camera will *calculate* what settings it should take the picture with.

So when that someone said you should focus on the rink first, they're probably suggesting that you focus on the ice first so that your camera will have a chance to adjust the white balance so that the white really does turn out to be white in the picture. Then while still pressing the shutter button down halfway, compose your shot, then press the shutter button down all the way to take the picture.

But as I was eluding to with my very first sentence above, not all cameras work this way. Some (maybe even most) cameras will still continue to adjust the white balance, the exposure, the aperture, etc., while the shutter button is halfway depressed.

So, you'll have to do some testing of your camera to see what all *locks* when you press the shutter button down half way. Almost certainly, your focus will lock. You just need to find out what else locks with it.





And of course, with all that said, on just about every camera, you can set the White Balance. The camera will have multiple white balance settings (sunny, shade, cloudy, fluorescent, tungsten, etc). You just have to figure out which one works best at the rink and then leave it on that setting. That way, white will always appear to be the same color (hue?).

And if your camera is fancy enough, you can even manually set the white balance. You'll need to refer to your owner's manual for that.

I hope that makes sense. Sometimes I go on and no one understands me but me.

[rhoneg]

Thanks, you completely answered my question. Canon xlti rebel.
I thought that there was possibly some trick but what you explained makes sense. I will go through the manual again to see.

[kro77]

I believe the 350d has a manual white balance mode. If so you can try the coffee filter method. What you do is basically put a bleached coffee filter over your lens point at the light, take a manual WB reading/shot and then set it to that. I have been doing that on my Pentax and find my indoor shots are looking much less yellow.

If you need more detail do a search on the web for the terms "White Balance Coffee Filter"

[Digidave]

I could be completely wrong here but I think what the person at the rink was saying was, Take a picture of the ice with nothing else in the frame & the lighting as it would be when shooting your shots. Then go into your camera's Menu & select white balance. Go to Custom setting & then choose the picture of the ice that you took. Your camera will then use that as the white balance reference point. I was just talking about this with a buddy yesterday. I was having problems with taking pics in the snow & the snow came out all brownish looking & he suggested to take a picture of the snow & to use that as a reference point. I haven't had the chance to try it out though, so I really can't say for certain it will work. I would definitely like to hear more on this subject myself.

[OBELIKS]

In the snow it would probably be better that you set EV compensation to +1, and than try to work on white balance. The same goes when taking pictures of swans and other white objects with lots of light. And vice versa for dark objects.