Olympics in Milan: The Women of USA Hockey win the quarterfinals

Last night (well...technically two nights ago since it is 2am here in Milan) was the quarterfinals for the USA women's hockey team and, as it turned out, they ended up playing against the home team of Italy. I figured that this would be a mismatch and it turned out to be exactly that. But hey, this blog is not about winning and losing, it is about the journey and the photo experience.

As always, I started with the warm-ups, but this time instead of getting a lot of action shots, I thought I would change it up a bit and get some smiles from the players, on the ice...

...and coming off the ice, and seeing family members in the stands.

For this game, we were back at the secondary (and smaller) rink. It would be our last game there, with all future games being played at the bigger Santa Giulia Ice Hockey Arena. I had not been back in this arena for 4 days and the quality of the plexiglass was severely degraded. I talked to the photo manager at this arena and he said that since the men had started playing there, the glass was scuffed up more than ever.

I got to the glass over an hour before the game started and found the cleanest spot of glass that I could find. I took this photo of Hillary Knight getting ready for the face off.

The US took a lot of shots on goal, out shooting the Italians 39 shots to 4 for the game. 

The US was so dominant offensively that I did not spend much time photographing in the defensive zone. The goaltender barely broke a sweat and I knew that even though it was a shutout, she was not the story.

Lots of scoring and celebrating.

People have asked me why I am shooting the Canon R1 at 1/1250 sec, it is because I need a fast shutter speed to grab fast moving action like this.

Hillary Knight is one shot away from setting a US record for scoring, so whenever she is on the ice, I spend most of my time keying in on her.

There are many times when the team (either men or women) score a goal on the other side of the ice. The clarity of the glass would never let me get a clear shot from that far away and at an extreme angle. In these cases, I will turn and try to get fan reactions.

I prefer to get shots of the athletes, but that is not always possible.

If you look closely at this photo (and I need to find images like this in a split second after each period), you will see the puck right at the goalies pad.

This was my favorite shot of the game, with a mass of people in the net. I said to the photographer next to me, "The Italians may not be able to get the puck in the net, but they got a person in there."

The Americans scored a goal and a little scuffle broke out behind the net. 

A nice slap shot photo.

This is another favorite photo from the night, because both players and looking right at me. It makes for a more interesting photo when we see their eyes like this.

The Italian goaltender had her hands full. Honestly, she played really well. The score could have been much more lopsided than 6 to 0.

I saw Hillary Knight wind up for this shot and was hoping that it would go in for the record breaking goal. But thta did not happen. Darn it. I had a clean and unobstructed view of her too!

This is yet another fisheye shot from the Canon RF 7-14mm lens. I am still trying to get that elusive "killer shot" on the boards.

The game ended and I wanted to get one last nice shot for the team. I saw that nobody was by the door, so I quickly opened it to get a shot without any plexiglass distortion. Hey - sometimes you need to bend the rules a little to get what you want.

Please excuse any typos. Normally I try to proofread everything before I post, but here at the Olympics, time is a commodity. I definitely miss some things. :)

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• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Africa, Iceland and more.

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Olympics in Milan: The men of USA Hockey have their first game!

After photographing the women for USA hockey over the last week, it was time for me to capture the first men's game. Both are equally amazing to shoot, and there are some key differences in the way that they play and I shoot. I will take you through that in a little bit.

I went over to the entryway area to capture images of the men coming onto the ice for warm-ups. I positioned myself so that I would get the Milan Cortina logo over them, but since I was shooting with the RF 70-200mm lens, it was not wide enough. 

I stood slightly off-center behind the net and took photos of them warming up. I caught this photo of Vincent Trocheck firing a shot, with the puck coming right at me. I took about 100 images and then ran back to my laptop to submit some of those photos.

Before the game started, I went back to the same entry area, this time with the Canon RF 7-14mm fisheye lens to get a wide shot of them entering the ice arena. You can see how different it looks from the first shot, just using a different lens and moving off to the left a little.

Then is was time for some action.

The men move faster than the woman, and I had to adjust the shutter speed up a little more. This time around I was shooting at 1/1600 for many of the photos.

Brady Tkachuk was the first to score a goal and turned right in front of me for this awesome reaction. This was my favorite photo of the evening.

I forgot how hard these guys hit the boards. If you saw some of the big hits right by me on TV, you may have read my lips and seen me say something not politically correct. Something like "Oh $%#$%! They hit hard!"

I try to capture images of every player on the ice, and even better if they have the puck.

In this shot, you see J.T. Miller tipping in a goal...

...and the celebration. But just like the other goal scored previously, this one was called a "no-goal" because of goaltender interference. 

You might be wondering why I would submit this image to the team. I felt that with two goals being overturned, the refs were part of the story and needed to be shown.

I always love capturing the action in front of the net.

Here I captured one of the Latvian skaters mid air in front of Connor Hellebuyck (the goaltender).

A nice poke check from Noah Hanifin...

..and a solid goal (which did count) for the 6 foot six tall, Tage Thompson.

I was glad that he turned and did this fist pump after the goal.

Auston Matthews (team captain) making a play. 

The team had a solid 5 to 1 win against Latvia.

Before leaving the ice, I saw a bunch of the guys waving to family members. I was able to catch some nice images of that. And tonight I will be photographing game number two for them.

Please excuse any typos. Normally I try to proofread everything before I post, but here at the Olympics, time is a commodity. I definitely miss some things. :)

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Africa, Iceland and more.

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Olympics in Milan - Having Fun at Short Track Speed Skating

Just like my visit to the Long Track Speed Skating, I made a trip over to photograph the Short Track Speed Skating to push the creativity boundaries once again. As I was shooting, I had a bunch of changes I had to make to my camera and shooting location, which I thought I would share with you all.

I positioned myself about 5 rows up, in a photo position in the stands. This gave me a straight on view of the skaters as they rounded the far turn and my way.

Once again, I started shooting images at a very fast shutter speed to freeze the action.

I took a bunch of photos as they rounded the corner near me.

Cool action with them leaning into the turn but...I wanted more.

I also had a bunch of photographers in the Field of Play (FOP) area in front of me, and I don't want that in the background of my photos.

For that reason I zoomed in tight to keep all the distractions out of my image.

I did get this big wipe out in one of the heats. Unfortunately it was one of the Americans who went down.

Now it was time to start motion panning again. I changed the Canon R1 setting to TV (Shutter Priority) mode and set the shutter speed for 1/30 sec. At least the photographers were not as distracting now.

Normally I tell people that the risk of motion panning is that, if there is a wipe out, you are not likely to get that shot. In this case, because I was panning with the American, he is sharp with the others in a blurry fall. Something different!

As I reviewed my images in the camera, I noticed that the best photos were up against the colorful background directly across from me. At that point,  I started to zoom all the way into the far turn to get the skaters sharp and nice backgrounds.

I tried to shoot most of the images as they past the Olympic Rings or Milano Cortina 2026 logo.

I zoomed out to try and get the group...

...and zoomed in to get shots like this.

For those that might be wondering what my 'take rate" was. I would say that of the 1000 images I took in a two hour time span, I was really happy with about 20 of the photos (most of what you see here). That is how hard it is to get this type of shot. I tried shooting at 1/20 sec, but that was too slow and I was not getting any useable shots.

Not only do I have to pan at the EXACT speed of the skaters, I also have to hope that they do not move their heads too much. I found that moving my focal point the left of my frame helped me get the leaders in focus, while keeping the others skaters in the frame behind.

This is typically what I am looking for, with good motion in the extremities, but the face being sharp.

You can tell which athlete I am panning with, as they are the one that is sharpest.

After the individual heats, they did the team competition, which meant that there were even more skaters on the ice. Oh...and you see the person in the front, that is a judge. I had to try and avoid them as well. 

Lots of bodies in one shot, but only a select few in focus.

I had fun trying to isolate the American skaters.

I looked around and saw that all the other photographers were using really long lenses on monopods. I was using my Canon R1 with the RF 70-200mm lens and RF 1.4x extender. I was also taking all my photos handheld.

This is a classic motion pan, with some good blur everywhere but the Italian skater's face, which is really sharp.

All in all, I was really happy with the photos, especially knowing how tough it was to get them. 

Please excuse any typos. Normally I try to proofread everything before I post, but here at the Olympics, time is a commodity. I definitely miss some things. :)

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Africa, Iceland and more.

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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