Here are some recent images I have taken at various NHL, World Junior, and College Hockey games. Shooting hockey games (and playing) is one of my biggest passions, but it also took some time to learn which camera settings were best to use. When I first started out, many of my images ended up coming out exteremly dark and blury.
Hockey is such a fast paced game, and as a photographer you do not have the luxury of bright sunlight that outdoor sports have. So you will need to adjust your camera settings to make sure your camera is able to handle the speed of the game, and the low light of the indoor arena. Below I have listed which settings I use when shooting hockey games.
To get best results for Ice Hockey Photographs (or other indoor sports) typical settings should be:
- Manual Mode (M)
- Small-medium f-number (f/5.6)
- Shutter speed 1/500s
- ISO level 800 - 1600 (go with a higher ISO level if the lighting is poor)
