Get the White right !

Getting the white balance right for a particular rink (and there are large variations between rinks) can make the difference between a nice set of shots and a disappointing output that will take lot of work to recover...
Purists will tell you to shoot RAW as you can adjust the white balance afterwards...but for my camera, the refresh rate when shooting RAW is not good, so I prefer to set it before the game. You can get grey cards to accurately set the white balance, but I don't think this really works if you are shooting through the glass (unless you can get the card to the other side of the glass !). The glass is often slightly tinted, usually blue or smoke and we should really adjust for this also. The pragmatic method that I use is as follows... maybe not perfect but its a good ranging shot to make sure that you are close...
I try to pick a spot on the ice that is clear of lines and so that I am shooting through the glass at approximately the right angle...like that shown in the red circle below.

I then zoom in on that area and take the picture. This can result in all sorts of color casts...red, orange or even blue and purple as shown in the example below.

I select Custom White Balance from my camera's menus, tell it to use this picture to set the white balance and then finally set the white balance setting to Custom. Now we can shoot knowing that the main correction is done. You might want to try a couple of test shots to make sure that you are happy with the results. If it is not good then just repeat the above and it usually clears up.

This should make things look about right and provide a consistent output for the game. I find this much more reliable that using auto white balance where this is re-evaluated for every shot taken. This often gives a more inconsistent color in hockey shots.

I'll talk a little more about the different types of lighting in the next post.