New year new lens, shooting the mistress, and a trip down to Telford

For a while now, I've had my eye on a lens. Or rather, several options for a new lens. I couldn't make my mind up as to specifically which one I wanted, but I knew the kind of thing that I would be going for. I wanted to add a nice low f-stop prime lens to my collection, partly for portrait shooting and partly for getting shots on the bench at the hockey.

My lovely family, knowing my passion for photography, had given me a Jessops gift card for Christmas (thank you guys!) and so the possibility of getting a new lens became a reality! With this in mind, I'd mentioned my desire for a prime lens to a few fellow snappers to get their opinions, and one of those snappers did me a favour and lent me a lens to use for a game. Vicki Smart is the proud owner of a rather nice 50mm f1.8 lens, and so armed with it I went down to the players entrance for the start of the Phoenix v Bees match on January 2nd to see what the lens could do:




Let's just say that my experiences with that lens were enough to convince me that a similar purchase had to be made!

The only drawback of the 50mm lens that I had borrowed from Vicki was that, for me personally, I couldn't get as much of the subject in the frame as I wanted to when I was shooting players at the team bench. There's not much room on the bench, and shooting players that were only a couple of feet away was very tricky with a fixed 50mm lens. Therefore the logical solution for me was to order a 35mm f1.8 lens, which I duly did!

So far I've not used it at the hockey as I've not had a home game to go to since picking the lens up. But, as you'd expect, I've used it on my local supply of willing models!






My passion for shooting the moon has been indulged a couple of times already this year, and we're barely a fortnight into 2012. I just can't help but shoot the moon whenever I get chance, be it during the night or the day. If she's in the sky, I'll reach for my camera! Recently I've been trying to shoot her freehand, without the use of a tripod or remote shutter trigger, and so far the results are fairly pleasing:




One day I'll get a shot of the moon that I like so much that I'll know I can't top it, and maybe I'll stop shooting it. But until then....

This past weekend, the Phoenix were on the road and had no home games, so we jumped in the car on Sunday and headed down the M6 and across to Telford to watch the Tigers host our boys. Telford ice rink is quite something for photographers, as I've mentioned in previous blog entries - the lighting in there makes every player look like they've overdone it on the fake tan. It's enough to put you off satsumas for life! Shooting the game is always a fun experience for me, even when I'm doing it from in the stands, and I always try to get shots that tell the story of the game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but with the Telford shots I'm fairly happy:





One shot in particular seems to have caught the eye of one or two people, and it's a shot I took as the players were coming out onto the ice at the start of the game. Telford's game intro consists of killing all of the lights, and having a spotlight aimed at each goal that pulsates on and off. Seeing a chance for a shot, I waited until the Phoenix netminder Steve Fone was in his crease doing some pre-game preparation, and I snapped this shot:



Sometimes a nice shot can be found where you least expect it, and it's just a case of keeping your eyes open, your camera ready, and taking a chance!

Cheers for reading!