I have always liked figure skating. There is something about how skaters glide, apparently effortlessly, on the ice. They show tremendous power, yet such grace. Along the same lines, I have always been interested in photography, although I had never really pursued it until a few years ago. I think the reason was that I hadn’t found a subject that compelled me to go out and start taking pictures. So, when my two daughters got into the sport a few years ago, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to pick up my camera and start taking beautiful photographs. I could already see myself taking amazing pictures of skaters in action. How hard could it be, right? Boy, was I in for a surprise.
My first attempts at figure skating photography were with my old, trusted, point-and-shoot Canon camera. I had a model that included all the most important modes (auto, aperture priority, shutter priority, and even manual). No matter how I played with settings that I didn’t really understand, all my pictures would come out dark and grey. And, most of the time, blurry. I decided the time had come to enter the world of DSLR cameras.
In this article, I will share what I have learned so far on this adventure. Although I will specifically talk about tips for figure skating photography, you will find that much of the information below also applies to indoor sports in general.
Table of Contents
Camera Equipment Considerations for Figure Skating
Early on, I didn’t know anything about DSLRs, except that I didn’t want to carry around a camera that was too bulky. So, I immediately picked the Canon EOS Rebel SL1 (100D) when the store clerk showed it to me. I bought it with the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM kit lens, and I was somewhat pressured into taking advantage of “today’s special,” which was to include the 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM lens for a few hundred dollars more.
Although it is true that an 18-55mm lens is not ideal for photographing skaters from the stands, here is a word of advice: When buying your first camera, unless you know exactly what you are after, go for one of the basic kits. Then, practice using it until your figure out exactly what type of subject you want to photograph. Then, go to Photography Life, and read the site from beginning to end (I’m kidding, but that’s almost what I did)! When you start to understand how photography works – what aperture, shutter speed and focal length mean – you can zero in on the gear you will really need, and thus avoid wasting money.
In my case, after a few months of not so bad, but still disappointing pictures, I decided to sell that 55-250 lens. The aperture was a big reason for my decision, since it had a maximum of f/4. Plus, it started using smaller apertures very quickly upon zooming in, way before hitting 100mm, so it was hard to freeze the action and still get enough light for decent pictures. I decided to purchase a Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8Di VC USD lens instead. Yes, I actually mounted that beast on a Canon SL1! The balance was a bit awkward, but the image quality was finally there.
When using such a lens – which weighs in at more than 3 pounds – you need good support. This is especially true if your camera is so small that you can’t really use it to carry some of the lens’s weight. That’s when a monopod comes in handy. I bought a used one from a friend and fitted it with a ball head.
I recommend a ball head sports photography, because when the camera is simply screwed onto the monopod, you can’t tilt the camera side to side (so as to correct for the monopod if it is at an angle). You have to make the monopod the very center of rotation and move your body around it. This is really not practical, for two main reasons: First, there isn’t always a lot of room to move around, especially when you’re taking pictures from the stands. Second, skaters move fast – like, really fast. It can be very tricky to frame pictures properly while dancing around a monopod.
I didn’t feel I had to go for an expensive ball head, since all I needed was a ball head that would provide smooth movement when loosened halfway. And I really didn’t want to shell out another few hundred dollars. The one I ended up getting cost me $45 and has been serving me perfectly since. Here’s how I use it: once I attach my lens, I loosen the ball just enough to let it move freely, while still providing a bit of friction, which in turn, provides some support. I can then rotate my body to follow the skater, and while the monopod still tilts on the side, the ball head serves as a multi-directional hinge that allows me to keep the camera level. Of course, when the monopod is tilted, it doesn’t hold as much of the weight of the lens and camera, but when the friction of the ball head is set just right, it still helps. This makes a huge difference when shooting pictures during a two-hour figure skating show.
How to Deal with Tricky Lighting Conditions
At the start of this article, I said that the pictures I took with my point and shoot camera were all dark and grey. This is because most interior ice skating rinks, especially those that haven’t been updated in many years, are not well lit at all. They seem to be bright, but it’s usually an illusion that is brought on by the fact that the ice is white.
All figure skating clubs where I’ve taken pictures do not allow the use of a flash, and with good reason. A skater could easily be blinded or disoriented by catching a flash at the start of a jump, and the consequences could be disastrous. So, you must make do with whatever light is available.
That’s no problem when you have an f/2.8 lens, right? Right, and wrong. In order to freeze action and not get a blurry subject, your shutter speed needs to be very fast. Yes, vibration compensation (image stabilizing) helps, but only for the movement of your own hands – it does nothing to decrease subject movement in a photo.
As far as aperture, shooting at f/2.8 is usually wide enough that sufficient light will hit the sensor, provided you are willing to let your camera flirt with higher ISO (1600, and sometimes 3200). But I discovered another issue with lighting. When I started editing my pictures, I saw strange and uneven lighting. On some photos, the ice would be white, while on others, the ice would get a reddish or greenish hue. Even worse, sometimes I would get both on the same picture.
The following photographs illustrate this well. The pictures are part of the same burst, so they were taken around 0.25 second apart. White balance (color temperature and tint) is the same in both pictures. Same shutter speed, aperture, and focal length:
I did some research and discovered that this happens because the fluorescent and sodium lights that are used in most arenas flicker. There are numerous technical articles online that can give you all the details, but in short, they turn on and off rapidly, usually at least 50 or 60 times per second. The eye cannot see it, but when you are shooting at 1/400, the camera might catch the light as it’s either turning on or turning off.
The downside of this is that it becomes a nightmare to correctly set white balance, as almost every picture in a set will be different. The upside of the flickering lights is… well… there is no upside. Note that shooting RAW is essential here, as it allows changing the white balance when editing pictures, but it is still time-consuming. Also, some cameras have an anti-flicker mode intended to prevent this issue (more on that later), but not all do. The worst case is when only part of an image gets a strange tint, at which point there is roughly nothing that can be done to fix it. Frustrating.
Recommended Focusing and Camera Settings
I got pretty good pictures with my SL1, but after a while I became frustrated with its limitations for sports photography. First, it only offers 9 AF points, and only the center point is cross-type. It is not easy to keep a single AF point on a moving skater. Second, it doesn’t have a dedicated button for back-button focusing, even though you are able to program one. (Back-button focusing takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s a life saver when shooting a group of skaters on the ice. You can focus once, and then press and release the shutter button many times without fear of messing up the focus.) Third, the SL1 can only shoot at 4 frames per second, and it slows down to around 2.5 fps after around 7 or 8 pictures.
So, I decided it was Christmas again, and I went ahead and splurged on a Canon 7D Mark II. This camera basically bust through all the limitations that I listed above. It features 65 cross-type AF points, with the center one being dual-cross. It features a dedicated AF-ON button for back-button focusing, like most higher-end cameras. And, it can go as high as 10 fps for around 26 pictures before slowing down.
Here are the camera settings I use and recommend to photograph figure skating:
- Image type: RAW. As I wrote earlier, shooting RAW allows many adjustments to be made to photographs. My workflow consists of culling pictures with FastRawViewer (thanks to Photography Life for the nice review of that product), then using Adobe Bridge to call up Adobe Camera Raw. On pictures that show too much noise, I then use Dfine 2 from the Nik collection.
- Shooting mode: Shutter priority. You can accomplish the same thing in aperture-priority or manual mode with auto ISO, but some photographers do not find that to be as intuitive for starting out.
- Shutter speed: 1/400. You can sometimes get by with 1/320, but 1/400 will give you a higher keeper rate, as you get less motion blur.
- ISO: Auto, with a maximum ISO set to 3200, at which point noise becomes too much of an issue. I know I would probably have gotten less noise at higher ISOs if I had gone with a Nikon camera, but since my first point and shoot cameras were all Canon, I naturally went with what I already knew. Either way, it is important to set a high ISO, since it is better to have a great picture with a bit of noise than a noise-free picture where the main subject is blurred.
- White balance: Auto. This usually gives me a good base to work with, and I can fine tune white balance in post-processing.
- Autofocus: AI Servo (continuous focusing), using up-center group of focus points. Focus points can be grouped in several ways on the 7D Mark II. The arrangement I chose gives me 3 rows of 5 focus points, located in the upper portion of the center of the viewfinder. This gives me a higher chance of achieving accurate focus on the skater’s face. Using a group of focus points, rather than a single point, increases the likelihood of accurate focus on the subject. Also, like many other cameras, the 7D Mark II allows the user to personalize focus tracking parameters. Values for tracking sensitivity, acceleration and deceleration tracking, as well as AF point auto-switching, can be fine tuned as needed. The camera even offers a preset for figure skating, and, so far, I have not found a reason to change it.
There is another setting on the 7D Mark II that really increases the quality of pictures, and really simplifies post-processing. I mentioned earlier that light flickers in most arenas. To circumvent this, the 7D Mark II features a light flickering detection system, and that system works very well. When enabled, the camera detects when light flickers, and adjusts the shutter release timing so that every picture is taken when the light is at its highest intensity. This results in sets of pictures that are evenly lit, and that show virtually no white balance variance. Since the shutter needs to be synchronized with the lights, enabling light flickering detection does slow down the burst rate to around 8 fps, but that is still fast enough to get good results.
Deciding When to Take a Picture
A good figure skater will seem to glide effortlessly on the ice, but in reality, the sport demands a lot of effort and strength. And most of the time, when every muscle in the body is solicited to execute a tight spin or a jump, the brain seems to either completely forget about the face muscles, or it commands them to participate in the effort.
Consequently, if you focus mostly on photos of jumps and spins, you’ll often get spectacular pictures, but you’ll have to expect less than ideal facial expressions. I’m not saying you should not shoot pictures of those moves though, as you can still get some good ones.
However, for me, the best pictures are obtained when the skater is doing tranquil movements, such as arabesques. This is when facial expression will be at its best, and this is also when you see more emotion show through.
Composition and Use of Light
Everyone agrees that besides bad light, bad composition is probably the most effective way to ruin a picture. However, when shooting fast-moving sports, a compromise must be made. I can’t say that I do not worry about composition, because inherently, whenever anyone takes a picture, how to frame the subject and what is included in the background is always on the photographer’s mind. But, when taking pictures inside an arena, there is not much flexibility to move around to find the best place to take pictures. Also, when tracking a fast-moving subject, you probably will not have the luxury to calmly compose an image. I find it is easier to rely on a smaller group of AF points and attempt to leave the subject under this group. This does sometimes require a bit of cropping in post-processing to adjust composition, but, with practice, you should be able to get a good photo to work with most of the time.
When we look at figure skating pictures on the net, we often see the same kind of pictures, where the skater is photographed in portrait orientation and centered in the picture. Don’t get me wrong – those pictures are usually taken by professional photographs, and are of very high quality, but they are not the kind of pictures I want to take. Early on, I made a conscious decision to almost always shoot in landscape orientation. Even though boards and arena walls rarely offer an attractive backdrop, this is the environment in which skaters perform, and I like to leave some of it in the picture. In many occasions, it is possible to frame pictures to have a background that is not too busy. Also, because there is not much light, I often end up shooting wide-open at f/2.8, which effectively blurs the background. On other occasions, shooting pictures from the stands, higher up, allows the picture to be framed in a way that the surrounding ice becomes the background.
When I have the good fortune to take pictures during figure skating shows, it gets even better. I gain access to the side of the ice, the arena lights are usually turned off, and follow spots are put in use. Some numbers also feature multicolored backgrounds and ambient lights, while others feature a more muted environment, where the spotlights that follow the skaters provide rich contrast with the almost black backgrounds.
Finally, I find that leaving some negative space in a photograph makes it more interesting. For example, framing the skater a bit off-centre, and leaving space in front of her, gives an impression of movement. Negative space also makes it easier to isolate your subject and better transmit the emotion of the moment to the viewer.
How to Capture Emotion
In the end, for me, it’s all about emotion.
I said at the beginning of this article that when I started in photography, I hadn’t yet found something that compelled me to go out and start taking pictures. Well, through all my experiences so far, I have finally found it. I like to photograph people, and, more importantly, emotion. The pictures I like the most, both within and outside of figure skating, are those of people just doing what they do, without having them pose for the camera. These are the pictures where expressions and emotions are at their truest. Some emotions can be subtle, and others, intense.
I think the best way to illustrate my point is the following picture, and the short story behind it. This picture represents what I hope to get every time I pick up my camera. Of all the photographs I have taken so far, this one is by far one of my favorites. The young skater was about to step off the ice, and I was following her in my viewfinder, hoping to get one last picture. It was at the end of a test session, in which she had evidently performed up to her expectations. Just before exiting the ice, she took a quick side look at her coach, and her joy just burst out. This is what I want to get in all the pictures I take: pure emotion.
I hope that this tutorial has provided you with some useful tips for photographing figure skating, and has inspired you to take some photos like this for yourself.
Please note that, since some of the skaters here are minors, I obtained permission from their parents to use the photographs in this article.
Thank you to reader Frederic Slight for contributing this guest post! You can see more of his images on his Flickr page.
My setup for this:
This article was super useful to me in 2024. My children do competitive artistic roller skating and I could not take good photos due to the low light + fast movement + telephoto required. Mobile phone cameras and compact cameras just don’t work and even lower end digital SLRs are not really enough. A higher end camera + lens are absolutely required for this so I recently got a Canon 6D full frame camera which has high sensitivity and low noise and is quite cheap second-hand. I tried using a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens zoom lens and was able to take OK photos at high ISOs (12000-25000 which was still acceptable quality to my eye). I noticed that the most common zoom setting I was using was about 135mm and that this was able to take half-body shots at the closest distances (2-3m) and full body shots beyond that, to maybe 10m away. Further than that, I got useable shots after cropping. So I splurged and bought a used Canon EF 135mm f/2.0 L lens. The advantages of this lens are that the large aperture produces great bokeh & allows lower ISO values, the fast focus lets me get in focus quickly, and the sharpness of this lens is also excellent. My first ever L lens, and more than I was hoping to spend (it cost NZ $800 (=US $500) which was the same price as the 6D + 2 midrange lenses combined but let me tell you how this was the best investment I made.
We attended the 2024 New Zealand National Artistic Roller Skating championships with two of my children competing and I also offered to take photos of other skaters in our club for free if they gave consent. I didn’t really know what I was doing so it was a learning curve. I took about 6000 photos in that week and started to get good.
I think the combination of the used Canon 6D and 135mm F2.0 lens is excellent at a moderate price. The fixed focal length means that you only get good framing of the skater over about half of the area of the rink but the full frame sensor combined with a large aperture telephoto lens produces excellent photos – very good bokeh that separates the skater from busy background and I was able to use relatively low ISO (about 2000-3000) which has low noise levels from this camera. The results were that I took some absolutely fantastic photos. Just jaw-droppingly beautiful photos. So much that more and more people from outside our club heard about them by word of mouth and were asking me to take photos of their skater. I took photos of about 30 people and got some great photos of just about everyone. People really appreciated this and used their photos in different ways – social media, printing out and also for promotion (for the international skaters heading to world events). I will probably take even more photos next year.
Another pro photographer was there taking photos of most skaters (to promote the sport, but they put a watermark over every photo…) and they used the popular Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L lens and I think that my f/2.0 lens produced better photos. My photos were more limited due to the lack of zoom but I think that quality wins over quantity – you just need 1 or 2 really good photos per performance rather than documenting every single jump, turn and flourish. I took about 40-100 photos per performance ta get a few good ones.
Notes and what would I improve on?
The 6D has relatively few autofocus points so I was limited to just using the central AF point and had to keep that on the skater in AF Servo mode at all times, ideally on their face (because the depth of focus is quite shallow). This means that I had to crop the empty upper part of the photo most of the time. I think that a camera with a better autofocus system would be better here – such as the Canon 5D Mark III (with more focus points) which is also quite affordable second-hand and which I’m tempted to buy. Newer cameras with face detection focusing (eg Canon R series) would also be really useful here but I can’t afford those yet. The 6D and 135mm lens are both quite lightweight compared to the 5D and big 70-200mm lenses and after 2-3 days my arms and shoulders became really quite sore from handholding the camera so much – so I might regret changing cameras. At the moment I WOULD NOT change the 135mm lens for anything else – it’s just so good. I recommend it.
I ended up not bothering to take photos at the far end of the skating rink most of the time because they require a LOT of cropping. These photos were actually still useable due to the sharpness of the lens and the low noise of the camera but I would be tempted to have a second camera with a 300mm or 400mm lens for that, perhaps a crop-sensor camera (although I am not sure if I can juggle 2 cameras like that – perhaps a second photographer would be better). At the moment these older cameras are relatively cheap and the high end lenses are still expensive so having a second camera body does not add much cost.
A general note – well over half of my photos are bad and need to be deleted (deleted straight away in-camera if time between performances allows). Sometimes a photo would have been amazing but it’s not in focus – there’s no saving that, just delete it and move on and hope for better next time. The main problems are: not in focus or face is not in focus, skater is facing away (can’t see their face), skater’s body position looks awkward (especially during spins or jumps) or has an unflattering expression on their face (they are concentrating), skater has fallen. Nobody wants unflattering photos of themselves and this is 10x true for preteen and teenage girls who make up most of the competitive skating athletes so it’s best to just delete these and only keep the good ones. Even some photos that I thought were really good were not liked by the skater. So consent is super important here I think. Don’t post any photos to social media or online or to shared/group chats – just send the skater their own photos directly and let them do that themselves with the photos they choose. On the other hand, some skaters are just particularly photogenic. They have a relaxed or happy expression on their face (rather than serious concentration that most skaters have) and their routines have a lot of dance movements or a fun routine that allow for great snapshots – I had some skaters where it seems like every second photo is just incredible. Those are particularly enjoyable to take photos of.
Some great photos are at the start or end of a skate when the skater is stationary and holding a pose – don’t ignore these. Also some of my best photos are of simple glides – where the skater is on one foot with arms out and one leg in the air facing the photographer. These are not difficult skating moves but they just look great on a photo with the skaters face and graceful arms and posture.
I had one skater where I felt that there were no really great shots so, with her mum and coach, we had a quick photo session on the practice rink and I was able to get some great photos there in about 10 minutes so that’s a good way to get some nice photos without the stress of competing.
Halfway through the competition I became slightly obsessed with getting photos of skaters jumps mid-air. These are particularly difficult and often a matter of luck – if someone is setting up for a jump I would just hold down the shutter button and hope for the best and a small number of those turn out somewhat good. It’s very satisfying when they do but the ‘bad photo’ problems above are multiplied. Expressions are usually very serious concentration and body parts and leotard fabrics are pushed outwards by centrifugal forces. Tassels can look great in these situations. A higher frame rate would be useful here and I found out later that the ‘silent shutter’ setting that I used also reduces the frame rate. After a day, I changed my shutter speed from 1/500s to 1/1000s which still allowed good ISO values and definitely froze the motion, even mid-jump.
Overall, I had a very enjoyable time and got some incredible photos with this modest-cost setup and I suggest that other photographers try it out.
Thanks Frederic for a great post! I am still figuring out my best setting for figure skating, but hope to get there fast with your and others comments and lots of experiments.
Great write. I tried my hand at figure skating photography, just last night. I agree with everything you say in this article. Especially the part about rather having a grainy photo than a blurry one (I tell people that all the time as well). Getting a decent shot is also a challenge with a huge plexiglass wall in front of you. So I was happy to walk away with a few ok shots. Some conditions are totally out of your control, so you compensate any way you can, and try not to be too picky. Easier said than done.
Thank you I found this helpful. I shoot artistic roller skating for a club and as someone above pointed out – even more poorly lit and also not very attractive sports halls. I use a canon 6d mk 2 and canon 70-200 2.8. I am learning to not be so scared of higher ISOs as the noise can be reduced – I may try the auto ISO at the next event. My main gripe has been the camera not focusing quick enough and when shooting wide open for a faster shutter speed the wrong parts of the skaters in focus with the narrow DOF.
Very nice article. Just wanted to share some of my tricks that were not mentioned here.
Autofocus: I also use a 7D mark II with Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L mark II. Or rent the 200mm f/2. I find that using back button focusing and leaving the camera in continuous autofocus gets more sharper images. I personally prefer the extended single point focus mode of Canon moving it with the cursor to the approximate head position. I also often use the old Canon 7D with a EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 for the group pictures as a 2nd Camera in order not to miss anything.
Color Correction: I found that the 7D MII with it’s anti-flicker goes far as explained here. Nice to find somebody that was fighting the same issues. I also use a Passport Color Checker to create a specific color correction profile for LR. This on multiple positions on the ice. I finally have the correct colors for the dresses that are often come in very vibrant combinations.
CF Card: As I shoot probably 1000 pics per hour in RAW I upgraded to Lexar 1066x 128GB cards. This empties the buffer much quicker and I don’t have to worry about running out of space.
Here my public galleries showing my sometimes painful learning process:
adrianmeyer.smugmug.com/FigureSkating
Hi Frederic,
Thank you very much for posting this article. I’m glad I found and read it. My daughter just had her figure skating competition last Sunday. I took a bunch of photos with my new Sony A7III and 70-200mm lens and was disappointed with the results. One big issue to me was the uneven lighting (mostly reddish) as mentioned in your article and I thought maybe it was an issue with my new camera or lens, since I don’t think I have the same problem with my Canon 5D M3. I would still be scratching my head wondering what is wrong if not for your article. Thank you!
The article has a lot of good points- RAW format, monopod, fastest lens you can find. I don’t like one piece of advise though.
I’ve been shooting both synchronized skating and regular figure skating for about six years. In general, the light doesn’t change, unless its an ice show or ice theater. Its a sport. Shoot like the pros. Shoot the ice before the competition and chimp your photos. Shoot at each end of the ice form your position. The lighting will be different at each end. Find out what settings (ISO, Shutter, and Aperture) get the histogram on your camera to the right but not quite touching the edge at the brightest part of the ice. No blinkies! Do not use AutoISO. Then adjust your camera so that the shutter is over 1/400 sec for beginners or early intermediates and synchro. You will need 1/800 or better to freeze the action for advanced skaters. There are plenty of apps that can convert for you if you’re uncomfortable doing the math. Try not to go over ISO 6400 with a current generation crop camera or 3200 for one going back to about 2012. It can be hard to do.
For Ice Theater or an Ice Show, some of your shots will be bad no matter what since they change the lighting so much. If something is being spotlit before the show, take a few shots of the spotlight and set your camera so there are no blinkies. Then keep it in manual. Once again, you could probably get away with 1/400 or so, but the advanced skaters will need 1/800 to stop motion. This will let you keep the brightest subject from blowing out. Aperture or Shutter priority modes or AutoISO will make the camera guess at what you are shooting and may blow out your scene since it will try to expose the background and foreground to a reasonable compromise. You do not have to compromise because you know what the brightest spot is all night. If you get a dark photo you like, you can still do a pretty good job pulling it back in your RAW editor of choice but don’t have to worry if the shutter was high enough.
Also, experiment! Try 1 second photos, panning, and all kinds of other techniques to see if you find something you like. You aren’t failing, you’re experimenting.
Frederic, thank you for sharing those wonderful photos. Like you I have bee photographing my daughter doing her ballet in the last 10 years. Low lighting and fast action are the real challenge that requires fast telephoto lenses and camera bodies with high frame rates and fast AF system. The 70-200 mm f/2.8 and 7D MK II fit the bill. Instead of chasing the skater and shoot, one can try to anticipate the pictures you want first. Since you know the skating program better than anyone else, you can compose (vertical or horizontal), set the focus point/group where you want it (remember the rule of third), start to track the subject, and shoot in short burst once the subject enters the desired spot in the scene. The first one or two frames maybe a bit soft but the next few should be tack sharp as the AF locks on. Remember take lots of pictures and you hand and eye coordination will only advance. So does your photography. Once again, thank you for sharing.
Hi Joe,
Thank you for the comment. You are right in saying that anticipation is key. The more I shoot, the more I can recognize specific postures, and be better able to anticipate what move will come next. Of course, if I have seen the program before, it’s even better. Instead of trying to grab everything and potentially miss great moments, I can focus in advance on what I know is coming and get better shots. But I don’t always get to see every skater’s program before the time comes to take pictures. That’s where practice comes into play, and I think that missing a great shot once in a while, and more importantly understanding why, is part of the learning process. That’s how you build experience.
Frederic,
There is lots of overlap between sport and wildlife photography and anticipating is one of them. Steve Perry (not the singer) has a very informative website on wildlife, backcountrygallery.com. I highly recommend both of his excellent eBooks which I review from time to time, even though he uses Nikon system and I use Canon system. Reading through his first eBook helped me to improve the timing and getting the shots at the peak moment. He gave many great examples. His message is that learning the animal behavior is the key just as you would with the skating program. Today we are so fortunate to have these wonderful equipment and capabilities (predictive autofocus, image stabilization and post-processing) that I cannot imagine back in the film days. Enjoy yourself and you are doing fine.
Congratulations and good job on addressing a subject that’s rarely approached by sports photographers.
As a photographer, and parent of a former internationally ranked ice dancer, I’ve shot in rinks and arena all over the world; my images have been published by Ice Network and Ice-Dance.com and many skaters websites.
One thing I learned about arena/rink photography is that there is no consistency between them and lighting at most rinks are marginal and inconsistent. That in mind, my routine was to always do a custom white balance using the ice as the target and although I never shot RAW images, the ability to color correct was not that difficult. There were times where I would shoot every team competing which meant I would be standing for hours in a cold rink hoping my batteries would stay charged long enough to fill my flash cards- shooting JPG meant more images per card and if you’re shooting 20 teams the images add up!
At the time I was using a Nikon D200 w/70-200 vr (vib turned off) on a monopod fitted with a tilt-head in manual mode. The D200 was not particularly good at high ISO so most of my images were shot around 1600 which meant a shutter speed of 1/250 sec. and the occasional 1/500 sec in a well lighted arena. One observation about rink lighting is that the center tend to be brighter than the boards, so for beginners, you might want to concentrate on action towards the center of the rink. This actually works in your favor because judges sit red-line-center-ice and skaters like to show off their best stuff for them.
Experiment: Shutter drag (slow shutter) pan with slow shutter, some of my best shots were done this way. Find different angles: I like to go high in arenas with multi-levels so the ice becomes the background. If you can, get in close with wide angle lens.
The most important word of advice is to shoot, shoot, shoot and then shoot some more.
Thank you Howard! And congratulations on having your pictures published! Traveling the world taking pictures of your child on the ice: I could think of a few worse things to do!
Setting manual WB is something simple that I haven’t tried yet. Using the ice as a target for WB sounds like a good tip. I have heard that the light gray interior of most camera bags is also good, but I guess the ice offers the advantage that it is getting the same light intensity as the skater will, which won’t be the case of your bag in the stands.
You are right about the center of the ice being the best spot for photos. But more often than not, at least in the places I’ve been, not being the official photographer means I’m opposite the judges, so the skaters usually showcase their best poses with their backs to me. Well, you can’t have everything!
I imagine panning with a slow shutter speed will give good results during moves where the skater doesn’t change position, like an arabesque? Results must be interesting, but it sounds like something you have to practice quite a bit before getting it right. As you said, shoot, shoot, and shoot again. The motion blur on the background must be impressive. I would love to see some of your pictures where you did this!
I’d be happy to post a few, but not familiar with how to do it in this forum.
I can’t say for sure if there is a policy on the site or not, but I believe I have seen others insert a link inside a comment. Maybe a link to a web site, Flickr page or something similar?
Lets try this:
I’m new to Flickr, so bear with me!
Flickr link to Lake Placid Ice Dance Competition 2009
www.flickr.com/photo…936254494/
That is one impressive ice dance move! And a really nice photograph! I like how the motion blur is present, but not equally in every part of the photo. Very artistic. Thank you for sharing.
Btw, the link didn’t work as is, but I managed to get to your homepage at www.flickr.com/photo…052462@N07 and then the photo was available.
You might also rent one of the fast Canon or Nikon 200mm f2.0 lenses. The extra f-stop makes a big difference in keeping ISO manageable. I tended to shoot at f2 or f2.2.
I rented the Nikon version of that lens ( www.lensrentals.com/rent/…0mm-f2l-is ) and it made my old 70-200mm 2.8 look slow in focusing and was much sharper. The only trouble is that they are heavy and you might decide you have to own one.
The other thing is camera choice. If your daughter is going to be skating for a while, you may eventually decide to upgrade your camera. When you do, look specifically for cameras that do well in low light. For Nikons for example, my D750 performed better than a D810 in low light. The D810 had more megapixels, but that to me is better for situations where there is plenty of light. www.thephoblographer.com/2017/…otography/ If you have a great lens and camera combination, you have the ability to crop quite a bit to get a better-composed shot with no visible loss of quality, and no amputated limbs (just kidding there).
A final tip which may have been mentioned is to take some dry-run shots before you start shooting “for real”. That is to make sure all your camera settings are what you intend. I always make it a practice to reset my camera settings to a personal default. I remember one time I didn’t do the pre-check and I had left my camera on the timer setting, so 5 seconds after I hit the trigger, the camera went off.
John, trying out a fast prime lens has crossed my mind. However, since my current camera is a cropped sensor camera, I think going with a 200mm would be too limiting. Choosing the ideal focal length would be tough. Even now, I find that having 70mm at the widest end is a bit too narrow for my taste, but it’s something I can live with. And I need the 200mm when the skater moves further away on the ice. Still waiting on that 1-pound, 10-500mm f1.4 lens that is sharp at all focal lengths… ;-)
I have also thought about going with a full frame camera, and as you said, getting one that has a lower pixel density, which means bigger pixels, thus more light on each pixel. However, at least in the Canon line-up, the only full-frame cameras that offer comparable focus performance as the 7D Mark II are very expensive. But, it’s something I will keep in mind.
And as for your final tip, you can’t say it enough. I have been caught by this a few times. Not the timer, but exposure compensation. I had left it to +1 stop from a previous shooting. Luckily, I didn’t blow up highlights on the pictures I took, but I had to lower exposure quite a bit. Now I have saved my settings to a custom mode (C1), so I know that my settings are always the same at the start of any photo shoot.
Thank you for your comment.