My niece Maggie has started playing soccer, so on Saturday Angela and I decided to check out a game. I've never done any sports photography, so this was also my chance to try something new. The game wasn't very long, so I only managed to get about eight shots or so, and only half of them were in focus. Also, no goals were scored, but nevertheless I think it was a successful day.

This is a photo of Maggie staying focused and concentrating on the ball, in her purple dragon soccer clothes.

It was shot with my Rebel XT + 70-300 IS at 300mm, ISO 800, f/5.6 for 1/3200th of a second. If I ever find myself in this situation again, I think I would put the camera into rapid fire AI servo mode and zoom out a bit more in the hopes of picking up more of the action.

Comments

For shooting action (mostly birds and stage performances, though this would
apply to sports as well) here's what I've found works:

ISO 200 or 400 (higher
or lower depending on light levels)
Tv mode with a high shutter speed, ~1/2500
- 1/3500 (watch the resultant aperture size though)
AI Servo
Center point AF
only
Continous drive
CWA metering (I sometimes go with Partial or Spot for
bright white birds and for stage stuff)

This usually results in decent results
and even though you end up taking hundreds of shots of which 90% can be chucked
the few that are left over are pretty good.