Express Action Sports

I’m a horseback rider and like taking pictures of horses jumping at shows. I have found that indoor pictures especially are almost always blurry on the sports setting as well as most outdoors. I’m not super familiar with photography or cameras yet so sorry if this is a stupid question but i just feel like capturing clear action shots with a $600 camera should be possible and a lot easier than it has been. Thanks for all the help 🙂

The first situation to consider is the lighting–
The second situation is the subjects distance..
If your having a blur appear..you need to get closer..
You may also need to use a Shutter-Speed..of 1/500
A ZooM Lens requires more light..than a shorter Lens..
Consider shooting less ZooM..and Cropping your original..to achieve Zoom/
Large Resolution will give poor results in low light–
You might trry–>>1600 x 1200 [M3}..NOT Wide Screen..
Use a TriPod..and a Shutter-cable switch..
My camera has a 2-second TIMER–you might try that–on a TriPod..
I’ll use my 10-second TIMER on a TriPod for very difficult image capture..
But I would imagine 10-seconds would be a MISS–on all photo’s.

My camera has a 10x optical zoom and a ‘sports’ mode which predicts movement. I want to use it outdoors (eg soccer) and indoors (eg ice hockey) but my pictures are not particularly crisp, even at 7x5in size despite the camera having 8.1mp and coming with a zeiss lens. I use autofocus and depress the button half way down before shooting.

What am I doing wrong, and is there an easy way to correct it? Thanks.

I’m not sure why this isn’t working for you, sounds like it should. The only thing I can suggest is turn on your "auto-bracketing" feature or auto-bracket on a manual setting. It might help. Also, do you use a tripod? This would help, especially on a timer setting or with a remote shutter release, which would steady your camera & give you crisper pictures. Sorry, I can’t think of anything else.