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Five-minute Major
December 10, 2006A few shots you didn't see in the newspaper and thoughts from Saturday night's Wichita Falls Wildcats hockey game against the very good Santa Fe Roadrunners.
The Wildcats lost 2-0
The Wildcats just can't seem to beat Santa Fe.
It's almost reaching Rangers/Yankees proportions from a few years ago. Or Wildcats/Tornado proportions.
Blame it on their goalie...he's good. I mean really good. This Nick Hopper kid has a goals against average below 2.
For those not in the know about hockey...that means that he AVERAGES less than two goals a game. He gave up three on Thursday night to the Wildcats...but then shut them out last night 2-0.
Regardless of how the team is doing...I love photographing hockey. It's always a challenge for me to come up with a really good shot. Everybody can get a shot of one of the players skating along with the puck...but it takes luck and skill to get something really nice.
I'm a sucker for trying to get a huge body check shot. When a player passes the puck off in the neutral zone or anywhere for that matter...I always stick on that player for a few seconds to see if somebody is going to deck him. Hasn't happened this season for me yet...but it will.
Anyways...here are a few shots from last night that I really liked.
Jason Palmer/Times Record News
Wichita Falls forward Luke Salazar (6) is taken down from behind by Santa Fe forward Jake Hutt (14) during the second period of the Wildcats hockey game against the Roadrunners Saturday night.
Jason Palmer/Times Record News
Wichita Falls forward Mike Schumacher (19) plays the puck with his skate in front of a Santa Fe defender during the second period of the Wildcats hockey game against the Roadrunners Saturday night.
These guys were cracking me up most of the night. That's the Midwestern State men's soccer team folks. Being really really good fans. Some of the medical staff at the game told me that they haven't missed many games, always painted up and yelling loudly. I wish we had more of that kind of spirit at the games.
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Anyways...so how exactly do we get such good photos at the hockey games. It's all about the equipment of course. Just kidding...it's really about the light.
You've got to have a lot of light to get a good photo...and a lot of bright light to get a good action photo.
The brighter the light...the faster your shutter speed can be...and the faster the shutter speed, the more frozen the action appears. Blur is usually bad in sports.
The lights in the KYC are plenty bright enough for the human eye...but not quite so for the cameras that I use. I can make it work fine enough...but it's not nearly as sharp and good looking as with a little help from more powerful lights.
Strobes are what we photographers call them.....flashes (same basic thing). More specifically...they are called "White Lightning 1600s"
We have a set of four 1600s in the rafters at the KYC that can be fired with a remote trigger to brighten up the floor...they work beautifully.
The only problem is that four lights aren’t enough to fully cover the entire ice surface. The light fades away about at the center ice stripe. That's okay for me...I'll usually have one camera configured to shoot with the extra bright lights on one end...and the other camera set up to shoot with just the arena lights.
Most people probably don't even notice the difference in the quality of photo...or notice the lights flashing at all. If you do notice the lights...that's what they are.
But trust me...the quality difference is astounding to say the least.
Posted by Jason Palmer at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Comments
Great post! I like the new style along with the photo 101 lesson. Keep it like this!
