Originally Posted by daacon
Wow thanks for all the advice but I need more
I went to the rink last night - the lighting is not bad actually and I think I will be able to use the Bigma is the good news. The bad news is there is indeed glass all around the arena and the netting goes around the entire rink as well (save for the benches and penalty box). I tried a few through the netting and that will not work. The glass is pretty clean in places and some shots came out quite nice so that will be my only vantage point I think (find some clean , unmarked glass).
Maybe pick your spot now and clean it yourself
I tired a few panning shots but was unable to get the skater in focus. I did get the nice blur background on the boards. I am using center metering. I would focus on the player and then 'pan' however the player was not usually in focus (one or two were , but like in golf for me a great short iron shot is more luck than skill
) So what is the secret to panning? I will do some more searches - might not get another chance to get out to the rink before Saturday , oh well - good thing I am an amateur haha.
Really thanks for the replies
To keep the player in focus while panning, you will need to set the autofocus to "C" for continuous, as it will need to track the changing focus. I don't know about predictive focus on the camera, not much of an issue is made about this now, but when I bought my PZ-1 it was a big deal. The camera should realize focus distance is changing.
Also can you confirm the autofocus is set to the center spot as well as the metering, and not to either auto or select? this will insure you don't have the camera doing something weird.