Hey Now…You’re an All Star….

A few weeks ago I got an exciting email from a guy named Craig who was asking for information and availability in regards to documenting the EHCL Hockey All Star game which was being hosted here in Indianapolis.  Craig works for the Hockey Hall of fame out of Toronto Canada and they needed all kinds of media from the event for museum purposes and future records.  After a quick look at the calendar and a few phone calls excitedly I agreed, but it was going to be a tight turn around as I had less than a week to plan everything out including getting approvals for all the things I wanted to do.

Nikon D850, 4000ISO, Nikon 24-70F2.8@70mm

The All Star game was being hosted by our local team, the Indiana Fuel.  John and Kelly from White Shark Photography (who are the offical photographers for the Fuel) were instrumental in making sure I was in the know when it came to the schedule of all pre game events, who I needed to talk to in order to have permission to hang my remotes, and when I needed to be out on the ice when it came time for things like the Hall of Fame inductions or the Wayne Gretzky Trophy.

Nikon D750, 500ISO, Sigma 24-70F2.8Art @24mm.  1/200th@F4.5.

In the end, I settled on 5 cameras for the game.  I wanted to go with 6, including 3 remotes up above the Ice, but unfortunately, the day of the game the pocket wizard cable for my D750 was inoperable due to a bent pin in the connector.   That left two remotes for me, up top; a Nikon D3s, and my Nikon D850.  Bit of a resolution difference there, but that’s ok.  It’s what I had available.  (Some will ask why I chose to use the D3s instead of using the D750 with a different cable.  Good question, but the reason is simple.  The D750 requires a proprietary Pocket wizard cable that is not the standard Nikon 10 Pin and I only had 1 D750 cable at the time of the game).  

After getting everything safety cabled up and testing to make sure the remotes worked I was all set.  I had the other three cameras on me down on the ice, and from there the rest is regular hockey coverage.  The game itself was pretty exciting considering the guys playing are considered the best in the league currently although the game wasn’t as physical as a normal game since they were obviously not playing for a championship or anything like that.

Nikon D4s, 4000ISO, Nikon 200F2VR2 with Nikon TC14eII making 280mm.  1/1000th@F2.8.

At the end of the day, I had shot three two-period “mini-games” and created 235gb worth of imagery to edit out of the 5 cameras. Lot of work, but everything I got out of the remotes, and the game action at ice level was well worth it and the both myself and the Hockey Hall of Fame were very pleased.  (A Happy Client is always a good day.)  The game came at the perfect time too as a week later was my Hockey Photography workshop with Roberts Camera.  (Which I’ll show a bit about in the next post).  Lots of neat things coming up in 2018, hopefully, I’ll get the opportunity to post more too.  Normally in January, I’m pretty slow, but this January (to the dismay of my wife) I’ve worked almost every day; including doing some assisting work for Nikon Ambassadors Andrew Hancock and Dave Black.  Dave has always been one of my greatest photo heroes and to have been asked to help him out with a photo workshop at Roberts Camera while hew as here in Indy was an incredible honor that I’ll never forget.  More Soon.

Nikon D5, 4000ISO, Nikon 70-200F2.8E@180mm.  1/1000th@F2.8