Any photographers on board?

Legume

I feel stupid even attempting to post here as I've only ever shot as a Dad and with mediocre equipment.  However, I did spend 13+ years taking photos of my kids and their teammates in football, baseball, softball and track and have made some great images.  My kids didn't stick with volleyball and basketball long enough for me to crack the code on the indoor environment which was fine with me - I prefer outside and I didn't buy the really expensive glass.  I used a Canon Rebel XT (8MP) and a 70-300 f4-5.6 IS.

So that being said, my two cents from the budget dad perspective:

• take lots and lots of pics, this took me a while when converting from film
• depending on what I was trying to take a pic of, I would alternate between shutter priority and aperture priority.  I couldn't shoot at ISO 100 with that lens with any zoom, so I would usually set to 200 or 400 depending on the brightness
  
• typically I would go with shutter priority and set the shutter to the speed to match what I was trying to freeze - for baseball and softball this meant a faster shutter to freeze the ball being pitched or hit.  If I was shooting a fielder or baserunner I could tolerate slower shutter speed.
• I would use aperture priority more often in football since it was usually a clot of people and the depth of field varied so much.  Also, the action just isn't as quick as a pitch or swing in baseball/softball
• you mentioned focus as being your issue with soccer.  take a look at your pics and figure out if this is a shutter speed thing or a focus thing.  more often than not for me, shutter speed wasn't the issue, it was where the autofocus was selecting.
  
• For baseball and softball pitching and hitting, I would go to manual focus and select an object in the plane to focus on ahead of the action and then not touch it.  I also did this for some track events - like finish line for running or pole vault when I knew where I wanted to freeze the action
• for football or for baserunners and fielders in baseball/softball, I would select the center point only for focus and set it so that it was not constant autofocus.  I used the custom settings to repurpose one of the buttons on the back to be my focus button rather than the shutter button and I would use my thumb on that and keep mashing as I followed the action - when I knew the spot was on the right target and then snap away with my index finger.  This keeps it from refocusing when you momentarily come off the subject with the center dot.  also allows you to frame your subject off center if you want to do that.  another dad who is a pro photographer on my kids pop warner team years ago showed me the thumb and index finger trick, it took some getting used to, but really helped me with focus on moving objects.
  

tarheelmatt

Great tips @Legume!  Back button focus is a must with sports.  

Chicklet

A few from this past weekend.  My daughter is #13.  

Botch

The Man in the Brown Shorts brought me a package today!

 

 
http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u139/Botch07/_DSC0086.jpg

 

I've always wanted a simpler camera like my beloved FM-2, all manual control, but took digital pics; this is as close as Nikon's gonna come to it.  Found a "9" condition "lightly used" camera for about 35% off the cost of new, the box itself and all the accessories, manuals and CD are still in their factory shrink-wrap, warranty card not filled in, I think I got a brand new camera!  Three-day weekend coming up, can't wait to try her out!