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What are the best settings for sports/action shots on my Nikon D40?

I’m going to my niece’s cheer leading competition and am most likely shooting from the stands. I have a Nikon D40 with a 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm lens. What would be the best settings to capture great action shots? I normally get blurry, ghost-like shots when shooting in the sport mode. Any suggestions?

The problem may be the lighting. If it’s indoors, the shutter speed may be too low to get good freeze-the-frame shots.

Work in shutter-priority mode and set to 1/250 of a second. If the camera can’t set your aperture low enough for that to work, adjust your ISO higher. The danger in this is that with a higher ISO you’ll get grainier pictures and lose clarity, but it may be the only option you’ve got. I’d try to go no higher than ISO 800.

ISO + Speed + Aperture = Exposure.

A good exposure calculator is linked to below.

  1. DCReed
    June 13th, 2012 at 16:37 | #1

    The problem may be the lighting. If it’s indoors, the shutter speed may be too low to get good freeze-the-frame shots.

    Work in shutter-priority mode and set to 1/250 of a second. If the camera can’t set your aperture low enough for that to work, adjust your ISO higher. The danger in this is that with a higher ISO you’ll get grainier pictures and lose clarity, but it may be the only option you’ve got. I’d try to go no higher than ISO 800.

    ISO + Speed + Aperture = Exposure.

    A good exposure calculator is linked to below.
    References :
    http://www.robert-barrett.com/photo/exposure_calculator.html

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