Olympus E-510 sport modes

[wisco123]

I recently bought the Olympus E-510 & plan to use it for sports photography.
I noticed there are two "sport" modes - one on the circular dial, and one within the "scene" mode (# 7). Is one better than the other for fast-moving sports?

I took some volleyball shots the day after I purchased it & some of the arm swinging / ball movements were blurred.

I am a novice photographer, so I prefer to use these pre-set modes - but if any of the Manual settings would work better, I'd try it.

Thank you in advance...

[kgosden]

I think that both are the same, but I never use the scene settings. In either case they probably work to keep the shutter speed as high as possible. The minus is that they likely do this by also manipulating the ISO value to a higher value as needed. This can lead to unexpectedly noisy images.

The best bet is to just use 'S' for shutter priority. Then you get to control the shutter speed used by the camera; within the limits of the available lighting. This allows you to decide how much noise or motion blur to have in your image. There really is not anything massively complicated to learn about the control of exposure settings. A few books and online articles could teach you the basics in 1-2 hours.

[JohnRayner]

I too have recently bought an E510 (lovely 'n light, hey ?!)
Sports pics/motion - I seldom if ever used any of the preset modes. Far more control when you override as in A/S priority. You have image stabilisation so why the blur ? Persevere. Have fun.

[Eric A]

Unlike the sports mode in the Scene mode, the sports mode on the mode dial allows you to use menu settings. Same for the portrait, landscape, macro and night modes.

[e_dawg]

The best bet is to just use 'S' for shutter priority. Then you get to control the shutter speed used by the camera; within the limits of the available lighting. This allows you to decide how much noise or motion blur to have in your image. There really is not anything massively complicated to learn about the control of exposure settings. A few books and online articles could teach you the basics in 1-2 hours.

We have a winner! Forget the scene modes if possible. Always better shooting sports in S mode and higher ISO. Turn off the Noise Filter, and use contrast -2 and sharpness -2 or -1 in Natural picture mode as well.