Back at Purdue Hockey Again

I am excited for this hockey season as the Purdue Hockey team now plays just an hour away from campus. That is close compared to where they have been playing when I have seen them in Kankakee and Danville Illinois. Last night they had their annual charity game for the Purdue Dance Marathon. Of course it was also against our in state rival Indiana. It was a hard fought game that was once tied at three apiece, but the third period belonged to Purdue. I had not been to a hockey game since the last Purdue Hockey game I was at last year. I love hockey, and I need to make more room on my schedule to shoot it. Now that Purdue plays a lot closer to home I think that I can make that happen.

Using the Fisheye Lens

Last night I had a simple rig walking around the stadium. I broke out my Black Rapid double harness to carry two cameras on my body at all times. I had my 5D Mark III set up with the Canon 70-200mm lens on it as my main body, and my Canon 60D with the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens on it for shots at the glass. I love the look of this lens at the glass. Last season I got lucky and made a pretty good photo at the glass. You have to be lucky and have the action come right at you. This year I moved to make the shot above, but did not get the big hit right in front of me. That just gives me more reason to attend another game I guess.

Shooting Through Glass

The Forum at Fishers is a nice venue for hockey, but it is not very friendly to shoot in. The lights give off a couple of colors that if you pick that moment to make your frame you will have a terrible photo. I spent way too much time trying to limit that effect in the images that I made in the first two periods. The glass that I was shooting through just seemed to amplify that effect. I spent the third period on a ladder above the glass. This does not give me the dynamic angle that I want, but I gained at least a stop of light, and I didn’t have to fight with scrapes and smears on the glass. This is not the safest way to shoot a hockey game, but I made enough good images that I stayed up there. I might bring a half dozen bottles of windex to the forum before the next game to clean the glass. I will at least have a good starting point. As you can see in the photo above a decent shot seems just a bit hazy after moving the camera and shooting through a sweat mark on the glass.

The Purdue Dance Marathon

As I said above the game was played with the proceeds going to the Purdue Dance Marathon. PUDM has been around for ten years now, and they do some great things for Riley Children’s Hospital. It is great to see a hockey game, but it is also great to help out a good cause. Last year they raised over 1,000,000 for the kids. This is a great organization that deserves your support. Click on the link above to help them raise even more this year.

Bonus Photos

As with most sporting events I will include a couple of other shots from the game that I liked. I have over 150 images up on my website here from the game last night as well.