Setting up your camera for Sports Photography is also very, very simple.

There is a couple of things you can do. One thing is just turn your Mode Dial to the Sport Mode right here. And what this does is a couple of things.

One, they’ll automate everything for you but you’ll notice that your focusing is set to AI Servo which means it’s going to continuously focus as long as the Shutter button is pressed halfway.

The other thing, the camera optimizes the Drive Mode to continuous shooting so that as long as you hold down the Shutter button, the camera will continuously take pictures at a rate of about three and a half per second so you have a better chance of capturing the action.

The problem with this mode is that ISO is set to Auto and White Balance is set to Auto. Now, White Balance being set to Auto is okay if you’re outdoors but if it’s indoor event, you may want to set this to either Tungsten or Fluorescent to compensate for the color temperature.

So instead, let’s go ahead and change our Mode Dial to Shutter Priority. It’s the TV option. TV stands for Time Value. And what this does is allow us to set the Shutter Speed and that’s exactly what we want to do when dealing with Sports. We want a very fast Shutter Speed so that we can stop the action. The other thing is it allows us to set the ISO and the White Balance.

Now, I need to properly set up the focusing and the Drive Mode for Sports Photography. So, let’s go ahead with the focusing. Just press the AF button right here and then move over to choose AI Servo and press Set. Change the Drive Mode by pressing the Drive Mode button right here, move over to choose continuous shooting and press Set.

Now, the ISO is really depending on how much light is available. If you’re indoors, you have a lot less light but then if you’re outdoors and you may want to increase the ISO to allow yourself for a faster Shutter Speed. If you’re outdoors and there’s plenty of light, you can go ahead and stick to ISO 100, it should be just fine.

Remember, you don’t want to use the Flash even though it is possible to use it in this mode. You want to avoid using it because again, this Flash is really only good for about 15 feet and it’s going to dramatically slow down the Continuous Shooting Mode. So I’m assuming this is an outdoor event so I’ll keep the ISO at 100. If yours is not set to 100, just press the ISO button right here with your index finger and use the Up or Down navigation buttons to move the highlighted field to indicate 100 then press Set.

The White Balance should also be set to Day Light. Go ahead and press WB and use the left or right navigation buttons to move the highlighted field to indicate Day Light. If it’s cloudy or it’s in the shade, then go ahead and set that appropriately. That will help warm up the tones in these images. Go ahead and press Set.

Now, all we need to do is set an appropriate Shutter Speed to stop the action so it really depends on the sporting event, just use your dial right here by the Shutter button to adjust that setting.

I’m going to start with 1/500 and see if that’s going to be fast enough. I’ll take a picture and then look at it on the screen. Remember, I have to zoom in to it using my magnifying glass icon right here in order to see whether it’s really in focus or not. If that’s not fast enough, I can just increase it a little bit more and then take another picture. If the action is coming towards you, you wouldn’t need as fast of a Shutter Speed as if the action were moving across the frame so press the Shutter button halfway.

Right now, my aperture is blinking at me because F3.5 is the widest possible aperture I can set using this lens and my Shutter Speed is not allowing for enough light so it’s warning me that the image will be a little bit dark.

If this is the case, I’m going to need to slow down the Shutter Speed or increase the ISO. Because I don’t want to slow down the Shutter Speed too much, I’m going to bring that down to 1/500. I think that’s fine but I’m also going to increase the ISO to 400. Press Set and go down. Now, I’m okay. My aperture is at F5 and I can go ahead and take my picture.

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