msmoto..spot works greats when shooting into the sun. Just put that dot on your subject and the effects are awesome.

I may have to try the spot mode with the meter. But, I have been so amazed with the ability of the D4 to compensate for bright backgrounds in so many situations, the matrix seems to work almost all the time. However, i do look at subjects, compensate for the exposure with backlight or dark backgrounds, then shoot away. It is usually when I am not serious about a shot, I find I screw up. Like just trying to grab a snapshot...

TaoTeJared said:
I shoot spot most of the time on single subjects. But I like to, or don't mind throwing non-subjects dark. To be honest I don't shoot in matrix metering much other than landscapes, groups or when I want to be lazy (i.e. don't have or want to take the time there and PS it).

Same here, I like spot the best and have found it takes the best shot given the time. I'm getting some what anal anymore with my shooting and have reduced the amounts of shots I take in half in order to get the effect I want in the shot.

Thanks for the feedback and tips. The single point AF-C and spot metering is something I can start to play with. I'm using AF-A right now.

To clarify my % of throw-aways: for a normal game I take ~600 shots, and normally trim that down to ~200 shots I post up. Of the ~400 shots I don't keep, maybe ~90 are because the focus wasn't right. When I started shooting my daughters games' I was using AF - Dynamic and more than half my shots were out of focus. After reading through a lot of forums like NRF, I tried different AF modes was able to bring that % down quite a bit.

For the shots I do keep, it's more like a digital diary of the game so I'll keep shots of the plays in progress and and ones that setup for a point or great defensive play. Also, try to spread out the pics a bit so all the kids are in at least a couple of pics. As TaoTeJared estimated, maybe 5-10% are really good. The 2% fantastic I'm working on - maybe more like 1 or 2 shots a game if I'm lucky.

If anyone is interested, I post up the pic's on a FB page so the players can enjoy them and have some fun with them. I'll burn them on to DVD's for the coaches so they can distribute to the players who wanted them. I have no aspirations towards professional photography, just a hobbyist. I do love capturing a great moment in the game, and it peeves me when I have to throw out a great moment because the focus was off.

This was the 2012 CUC Junior Womens Championship
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.174194612716383.40544.100003775351021&type=3&l=b6690cbb92

This was the 2012 CUC Junior Open Championship
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.175910449211466.41193.100003775351021&type=3&l=03df2d5a58

This was the 2012 CUC Open Championship - I photographed this one from way up in the stands, instead of the sidelines. Was a cloudy day, so I did boost the colors a bit.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.171367129665798.39353.100003775351021&type=3&l=4f02bb930c

ps - I know if I started shooting in Continuous High mode, my chances of capturing a great moment would be greatly increased, but I'm not ready to go there yet. Took me ~10 evenings to sort through and crop the 16 games I shot at the Canadian Ultimate Championships this August. If I started shooting at 4.5 FPS I'm thinking that would take a whole lot longer and my girlfriend would kill me ;-)

Bland said:
I read on here the other day someone else say they used center weight for metering when shooting action sports. I'm still scratching my head why but I'll try it out this weekend and see how it does.

I shoot spot most of the time on single subjects. But I like to, or don't mind throwing non-subjects dark. To be honest I don't shoot in matrix metering much other than landscapes, groups or when I want to be lazy (i.e. don't have or want to take the time there and PS it).

Now that I have done my crabbing... I will offer up a couple observations... Reality...about 1% of my action shots are "good" and if one looks at my Flickr account one sees about 10-20% of the shots. To have anything more than a mundane run-of-the-mill sports shot requires not only a lot of luck (right spot, right time) but a high input of time and effort into the process.

Focus on the D90 is actually fairly good in my experience. The D4 is of course much better. And the D90 has AF continuous servo just like all the rest.

The biggest problem I have is in casual shots, forgetting to make exposure adjustments when the background is obviously throwing me off. And, several shots I have taken recently of action where the sky was the background have been underexposed, but the D4 is so great it has detail in the shadows enough to save the image and produce a respectable final product. There is in the end, noise present when this is done, however.

In shooting action, if I have 10% of the shots as nice crisp images, I feel like it is a winning game. Of course, the final effect we are looking for may influence this.

I read on here the other day someone else say they used center weight for metering when shooting action sports. I'm still scratching my head why but I'll try it out this weekend and see how it does.

TaoTeJared said:
You only have to dump 15%?!? That is really good. I would expect for sports about 25-33% tossers (focus, out of frame, just bad) with about a 5-10% really good and about 2% fantastic shots. Out of 600 shots, that is 200 tossed right away, 60 Good shots to share/sell and maybe 12 great shots that are worth printing or pulling for portfolios. That would be what I would expect. The faster the sport, the lower the numbers go.

I have a hard time believing that as well. But hey, if you're really pulling numbers like that, that's impressive!

Sometimes I read other photography forum threads and yesterday I ran across a thread on Macrumors of someone stating he/she has approx. 10 throw aways out of 300 shots...stuff like that makes me chuckle. As well as when people make claims about their gear and have no pictures to prove they own it.

Anyways, back on topic.

As far as action shots go (I'm no pro), I believe it primarily depends on whether you want to freeze the action or not.

Now onto focus, and I apologize because I'm not familiar with the D90. Do D90's have the AF-on button? Continous focus? Edit: just looked at a picture and it only has the AE-L / AF-L button. Is that AE-L / AF-L button modifiable in the menu? If it is and you can apply focus to that button, do it. Pressing the shutter button tends to scan for focus to often. Also, as TaoTeJared mentioned, "I still prefer single point, and single point AF-C for most anything I shoot".

Hope this helps a little.

You only have to dump 15%?!? That is really good. I would expect for sports about 25-33% tossers (focus, out of frame, just bad) with about a 5-10% really good and about 2% fantastic shots. Out of 600 shots, that is 200 tossed right away, 60 Good shots to share/sell and maybe 12 great shots that are worth printing or pulling for portfolios. That would be what I would expect. The faster the sport, the lower the numbers go.

As for what you found on the AF - what you are doing (settings) is what I have done for years. In the newer bodies the 3d tracking on a single point with continuous is better than the past but I still prefer single point, and single point AF-C for most anything I shoot.

D600 or a D400 replacement would be good. I shoot a D800 and the AF is lightning fast and is the same as the D4. The buffer fills fast, but you can shoot sports with it. You just have to be more deliberate with your timing.

thanks for the response msmoto - I should have mentioned that I have been lurking in this forum for a couple of years now and did look-up prior threads which helped me a lot. Was looking to see if I missed anything that would help on my current D90 before I considered upgrading to a new body. And also, if a new body would make a significant difference.

First, there are numerous threads all related to this and here they are.

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=5784

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=1893

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=1893

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=1893

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=5784

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=1392

We welcome you to NRF, but encourage folks to do a forum search prior to posting a new thread. But, you have some unique questions, so let's keep this open at least for awhile and see who will help out.

Oh, my opinion is, if you can afford a D4 and a long lens like a 500mm f/4.0 or one of the other big guns, this is the fun way to go. But it may be worthwhile to see what Nikon will come up with in the next couple of months in a DX "paparazzi" camera. Especially many of us a waiting on the D400.

I do a lot of shooting of Ultimate Frisbee which is a fast paced game and looking for some advice to help me shoot better. Currently I'm using a D90 with a 70-200 2.8 lens. I shoot ~500-600 shots a game normally from midfield on the sidelines with the following settings:
shutter priority and set @ 1250
ISO at 200 on sunny days up to ISO 1000 on cloudy days
a1 AF area mode @ Single point
a2 Center focus point @ Wide
shutter release @ single shot

I have tried the other AF area modes (Dynamic, Auto-area, 3D-tracking), but have found that I get the best results with Single point & Wide. I try to pre-focus constantly by depressing the shutter release half way multiple times before a shot whenever possible. I used to miss a lot of shots due to focus on other players in the foreground, but found through trial and error that these settings work the best for me so far.

The challenge is that it's a very fast paced game and I miss some shots due to poor focus (especially shots mid-field). The trend appears to be the focus is on the background. In a set of pics for one game, I probably have to discard ~15% of the shots due to poor focus. I can tell some of that would be my subject moved outside of my focus area so I can improve there. But sometimes the subject is centered in the focus area, but the focus still ends up being on the background. Most noticeable to me when shooting the players around the end-zone.

I am not sure if 15% failure on focus is normal/acceptable or not, but I would like to decrease this percentage as much as possible because I hate having to throw away a really good action shot because the focus on the subject was not right. Would like to ask the huge pool of knowledge here the following:
Are there any settings on the D90 that would help?
Are there any shooting techniques that would help?

Also, I'll probably take ~20,00 shots a year, and am up to 50,000 shutter cycles on my D90. So I know in a couple of years I would have to replace it or have the shutter assemby replaced. Would an upgrade now in camera bodies make a lot of difference? I've had some discussions with folks at camera stores and while most just wanted to upsell me on a new body, a couple where very good and gave me the following info:
For sports shooting, I want a body with many cross type focus sensors - only the center focus point in my D90 is cross type.
Did not recommend the D800 as that was more suites for portraits & landscapes rather than sports shooting
Did not recommend the D7000 as they did not feel the way it focuses would be much different than my D90
Their advice was to look for the D300 replacement camera - as that one would have more of these cross-type sensors and be targeted at people shooting fast actioned sports.

So would the D600 make a noticeable improvement in focus accuracy of my shots? Or would there be no real difference until I move up to something like a D4? I'm just a hobby photographer taking pictures of his daughters games (her team won the Canadian nationals this year - yup, I'm a proud papa), but I'll be doing this for at least the next 10 years - so willing to invest in better equipment now if it makes a difference in the quality of my shots.

Thanks for reading through this lengthy post. Appreciate all and any advice.