Help me with sports photography PLEASE

[Stigmata]

Aye up fellas, what setting would you set you camera too if you was taking sports pics.

I have just purchased a SIGMA 100-300mm F4 to go with my canon 400D.

I have already taken some sports pics {see here} http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4705&id=601168601

with my canon and the canon 18-55mm lens, ok pics however couldn't get the shoots i wanted due to be far away from the action. (had to save for the big daddy lens lol).

 

[HIMUPNORTH]

Link doesn't work for me but anyway in sports shots usually a fast shutter speed is required to capture the action. To do this you must either open up the aperture which will allow more light in and in the process isolate any background which falls out of the depth of field or you need to ramp up the ISO setting on the camera to get the balance you require.

If all this is double dutch try going out with your camera set in "sports" mode and afterwards examine the exif data and see what decisions the camera made on your behalf. There is some good learning there.

Oh, and share them here. Good luck!

 

[desantnik]

Depends what you mean by "sports"... if you mean motorsport then its a whole different ball game to say football or athletics. With the latter you want high shutter speeds to freeze the human body in motion, with motorsport, a lot of it is slow shutter speeds and panning to blur out the background and make the subject stand out - use shutter priority and set the ISO to the appropriate setting for the light conditions, watching of course for too wide an aperture setting for your subject - eg f2.8 will cock cars up because of the size of the subject vs the distance if you are nice and close...

Really the whole subject of motorsport is beyond a single posting on this forum...