Help with action shots

[GhengisKhan]

Hey all, I was wondering if some of you could help me with an issue I'm having. I am just learning the ropes with my new Nikon D3000 DSLR, and have been having a blast snapping off hundreds of pictures every day, but have run into 1 roadblock so far. Getting good action shots. I've seen some of the sports pictures some of you guys here have posted where the action is captured almost instantly, and it is also crystal clear. I'm also into flying RC planes and have been attempting to get some pictures of the planes flying around at the indoor flying get togethers, but have not been able to get a single clear picture of the planes flying around. I know it's got to be some types of settings that I don't have quite right. It's not the focus, it's having a major amount of motion blur. Can anyone here give me a quick rundown of settings they use for capturing fast motion? Or just link me to a tutorial of some kind for taking decent action shots?

 

[SilverMK3]

keep your shutter speeds high and/or use a flash. Depending on the lenses you have, you may need to bump the ISO up in order properly expose the shot at faster shutter speeds.

Any sample shots?

 

[madFive]

Yep - the key to sharp action-shots is a fast shutter-speed. It would be a lot easier for you if you start doing action scenes in bright sunlight so you can get the gist of using your camera's shutter and aperture settings, then work up to the dark indoor stuff.

Switch your camera over into manual mode or shutter priority for these scenes. Usually I'd say start off around 1/2000 second - if everything is nice and sharp there, you might be able to go down as slow as 1/1200; or if it's still blurry, as in the case of the planes, you might have to crank it all the way up to the max speed.

For the dark indoor stuff, when you're in manual mode, you'll then want to set your lens aperture as wide as it will go. This is where fast lenses (~f/1.2–2.0) come in very handy. If the scene is still too dark with the correct shutter speed and the lens as wide as it will go, start cranking up your ISO. If it's still too dark, or too grainy as the case may be, the only other option you have is to start using strobe flashes. See Strobist 101 & 102.

 

[Voidy]

I use aperture priority for action shots. I like to have at least 1/800 for sports, and prefer at least 1/1000.

Being indoors, the lights most likely pretty bad, and depending on your lens aperture will make this easier or harder. Most good lenses are 2.8 fixed along the whole focal length, but consumer grade lenses might start out at 3.5 on wide, to 4.5 tele. 2.8 lets in twice as much light as 4.

I shot a indoor netball game for a coach semi recently, and to get 1/800 to 1/1000 shutter speed on my 2.8 lenses (canon 70-200 2.8 IS) i had to run at 1600iso for most of it.

Another way used in motorsports is to use a lower shutter speed and pan the camera with the car as it goes past, so the car is in focus and the background is blurred giving it a much greater sense of speed.

 

[botw]

What Silver and MadFive said. Voidy's suggestion will work for motor-sports because there are fewer arms and legs flailing around. For anything wth a moving person that will result in a lot of motion blur. With aperture priority, you will keep your aperture, but the camera will give you a longer shutter-speed to properly expose. When dialing in fast shutter speed, shutter priority is going to give you your largest aperture in most cases anyway.

If you can't get enough light with a fast shutter speed, you need to boost ISO. If that doesn't work, and you can't use flash, you need a faster lens.

Also, even using proper technique, it takes some practice to track and capture fast-moving objects.