sports shooting

[JBO]

hey,

when I am shooting sports (pics of skiers, soccer players) in bright daylight, should I use AF-C?

Is there any specific settings that yeild the best results? such as spot metering, etc.

Josh

[VTEC_EATER]

Yes use AF-C. Also use dynamic auto-focus as well. This should track your subject the best.

The metering is up to you. In regular daylight, I have had no problems with Matrix metering. If for some reason things are not looking right, you can try center-weighted, but if your subject gets out of that range, it could cause exposure problems. Spot metering I would not recommend as it is just too focused of a zone. If you are tracking a subject it could spot meter on something that you don't want and cause metering issues.

If worse comes to worse, manual metering is always an option.

[Tony_V]

AF-C will continuously focus on moving objects. If you are shooting soccer, skiers or anything moving like that than I would use AF-C. If you were going to shoot ski jumping where a jump is in the same spot every time I would compose the shot in AF-S and save some battery life. I do this when I shoot horse jumping.

As far a metering, I wouldn't over complicate it. I would try to stick with matrix metering and just dial in the correct EV offset to get the correct exposure.

My 2 cents
Tony

[K1W1]

I rarely use AF-C for Soccer.
You only have a relatively short lens in your profile so most of the action is going to appear small in your images until you crop so I would not use dynamic focusing either. Just keep the subject in the centre of the viewfinder and crop the image to suit afterwards.
For Soccer try matrix metering and Shutter priority with about 1/500 or faster depending on the lighting and age of the players (you can get away with 1/400 and sometimes even 1/320 for smaller kids). I don't use auto ISO I just up the ISO manually as I need to if the light is deteriorating.
I have also stopped shooting in RAW for sports. Jpeg is far easier and faster for post processing when you end up with 500 photos taken over a couple of hours.

[Daubs]

I have also stopped shooting in RAW for sports. Jpeg is far easier and faster for post processing when you end up with 500 photos taken over a couple of hours.

I've never shot RAW for sports. And like K1W1 get gobs of photos from even one game. Much easier to sort through the JPEG's.

JBO: i started with same kit as you, D80 and the 18-135mm. Quickly got myself an older 70 - 210 mm f/4 - 5.6 D and that worked well for a while. Then sold them both and went with the 18-200VR. Works well until you get a little lower light...that's why Santa brought me the 70-200mm VR! CAn't wait until sports season.

I shoot A-priority and adjust the ISO to keep my shutter speed above 1/500. I shoot AF-C, but miss a few shots here and there because I have been using center focusing. Had a few issues with dynamic focusing on things I didn't want to, so not sure what route I will take this spring.

I'm web designer, so one of the things I did was set up a web site just for my photos. Have a whole section devoted to kids games (baseball, soccer, basketball, etc.) I tell other parents about the site and invite them to download any pictures they want of their kids. At end-of-year get togethers I'm always "that camera guy" who they cannot thank enough for shooting picutres of their children.