Just a thought swooden:

You may want to think about how you are holding the camera as you have come from point and shoot to DSLR. You should be using the viewfinder and resting the camera on your left hand with the lens between your index finger and thumb and you should have your elbows pressing on the front of your body. This gives less shake and I think may get rid of some of your blurring. p & s shooters tend to hold their cameras like they smell so they can see the screen which is not good technique for a DSLR.

HTH.

If you want 5x7" prints I'd even go 3200 ISO on the D3000. I'm well aware this is a D200 generation sensor and 800 is quite noisy at 100% zoom, but a crisp well-exposed shot at 3200 will be far more pleasing to the eye than a bury 800 ISO one with noise under better control. That and at 4x6 or 5x7 you can get away with quite a bit of ISO noise.

Note also that the 55-200 gets slower (tighter aperture) the longer you zoom. If you can cut you distance to the action in half and zoom out you can gain a almost full stop (the difference between a blurry 1/250th second action shot and a crisp 1/500th second one).

For basketball a good flash is a viable option. For baseball it is less so (longer range = less light hitting the subject.) But a good flash is going to be a few hundred dollars at least.

I believe your best bet is to find a way to get closer to the action and to crank up the ISO as others have said.

Thanks for all the comments. Our next basketball game is this Sunday so I will let you know on Monday if I require more assistance!

As the OP's problem is lack of shutter speed with the 55-200 kit lens, his choices are; faster glass - not sensible at his level of knowledge and committment in his body - high outputflash, or simply turning up the ISO. For sure the first thing to try is turning up the ISO as we all do when we need more speed than the light allows. If that allows a shutter speed that gets rid of shake, he is set. If not, he can come back to us.

His main problem is lack of knowledge which is why a good book will help most.

swooden said:
I bought this camera to take pictures of my son playing basketball and baseball. I also bought the 55-200 zoom so I could get some close up shots.

Here is a suggestion - use one of the programmed auto settings - "Sports" mode comes to mind and it should have a kind of running figure to it, which reading the manual for this camera it is the one between "Child" and "Close up" settings on the mode dial.

I have a D3000 as a "spare", because it is cheap and takes the same lenses as my main camera body. If I had waited a few months, I'd have a D3100 as a spare (because the 3100 has replaced the 3000 now), but there you go!!! Always on the upgrade path with digital...

I also recommend picking up a book.

The basics of understanding photography is changing 3 things: Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO.

I recommend googling these three things,

All of these 3 things control how much light can hit your sensor. Too much light and your image will be overexposed, to little light and your image will be underexposed.

You need to get more light to hit your sensor in the camera. Because your shutter is "open" for a shorter time than normal. The shutter speed needs to be at 1/125 of a second to freeze people. (Faster for faster objects). So you need to change either ISO & Aperture.

You wont understand it all from my explanation. But I defiantly recommend some further reading. There are plenty of photography books that teach the basics.

Also make sure you half press the shutter button and focus on the action :D

swooden said:
Yes, brand new. I have always had point and shot cameras and now feel very overwhelmed with this new camera.

I was overwhelmed too but once you get to the point where you can get mostly good shots you'll feel great.

Yes, brand new. I have always had point and shot cameras and now feel very overwhelmed with this new camers. I will check out your suggested book. Thanks again!

It sounds like you are new to digital photography. If that is the case, you should get one of the guides for your model - I recommend 'From snap shots to great shots' by Jeff Revell.

Spraynpray, thank you for your suggestion. I'm not sure what the setting was on but I will give that a try. Thanks again.

Hi swooden, welcome to the NR forum.

Although I am not familiar with your model, I would say the first thing to try is to adjust the ISO (sensitivity to light) to 800 as it may be preferable to using flash (depending on the sport or distance to subject).

Have you tried that?

I bought this camera to take pictures of my son playing basketball and baseball. I also bought the 55-200 zoom so I could get some close up shots. After shooting about 150 action shots on the sport setting only about 20 came out without blurring. I went to the Guide help menu and choose the freeze motion (vehile) which can go up to 1/1000 but it states there is not enough light. Ok, so now i need a flash. Can anyone suggest a flash for the Nikon D3000 to use with my 55 to 200zoom lens. Does anyone have a better suggestion on getting good action shots without the blur images?