Focus Settings

• Use the automatic focus setting. Pre-focus by pressing the shutter button down lightly on the player you're following. While holding the shutter button, track the player. As soon as the ball or play appears to move towards him, press the shutter button all the way down to take a picture. If you wait to see the player's reaction while peering through the camera, you will miss the shot.
  
  Point-and-shoot digital cameras make sports photography tricky. The delay, or shutter-lag, between the time you press the shutter button and when the camera captures the moment often exceeds one second, making you miss the shot. Keeping the autofocus locked on the subject will give you more usable shots.
  
  

Sports Modes

• Use the sports mode setting for daytime sports such as soccer, tennis or track. The camera will automatically choose a fast shutter speed to freeze the movement of the athlete. Sport mode doesn't work well during evening, low-light sports such as football.
  
  Sometimes sports mode doesn't choose a fast enough speed for your particular sport. For example, auto racing moves much faster than a volleyball serve. Manually setting the camera's shutter speed will give you better results than sports modes.
  
  

Setting Shutter Speed

• You can manually set your camera to open and close the shutter at a specific rate. This makes capturing fast movements in sports much easier. If you want to also bypass the shutter lag problem, use a single-lens reflex camera for sports photography. A small fraction of a second after you press the shutter button on an SLR, the image is recorded.
  
  Set the camera to the shutter priority mode, often indicated by "Tv," or time value. Choose a fast setting, such as 1/2000 during bright weather or 1/250 during indoor or evening sports. A slow shutter speed will not freeze the athlete's movements, causing motion blur in your photos.
  
  

About Aperture

• To give your pictures a professional look, manually set the aperture using the "Av," or aperture value option. The lower the aperture number selected -- such as 2.8f or 4.0f -- the more your subject will stand out in the scene. Shooting with a small aperture number opens the aperture ring in the lens wide, causing the background to blur while leaving the subject in the foreground sharp. When it's in the Av mode, the camera will automatically choose your shutter speed. To choose both the aperture and shutter speed, use the fully manual setting, indicated by an "M" on your camera's command dial.