Why don't I ever get such good pictures of my own kids?

[rutt]

Seems like a jinx at soccer, baseball, skiing, etc:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/1737756-M.jpg

[fish]

That's a nice photo of waxy, tho :thumb

[wxwax]

:wxwax

[wxwax]

rutt, I'm thinking that to get good action shots, you have to have that 8 frames per second thing... 7 blurry shots and one crisp one tucked away in there. Without the ability to take multiple frames in a short time, I suspect it's very difficult to capture motion.

[rutt]

rutt, I'm thinking that to get good action shots, you have to have that 8 frames per second thing... 7 blurry shots and one crisp one tucked away in there. Without the ability to take multiple frames in a short time, I suspect it's very difficult to capture motion.
I use a 10D and set the "diive" to multiple shots for action. But I don't get that many blurry shots, just bad ones or ones focused on the wrong thing.

I've found that each sport has it's own learning curve. But here is a formula for taking action pictures of kids:

Get the camera low and stable. It's best at about the subjects' waist level. I bring a beach chair and stabalize the camera with elbows and knees.
I try to find a position that will be close enough to the good action and where the movement will be toward me, giving me a longer time to shoot and less need to pan.
I use a moderate telephoto and open it up all the way. This gets fast exposures and blurs the background. Downside is that foculs is critical and if there are multiple subjects the depth of field can be a problem.
I do set the drive to multiple. I think the 10D shoots 3 fps at this setting.
If I were a better photographer, I'd probably have more than one formula that works. My good action shots have a similarity. You can look at http://rutt.smugmug.com/Sports to see. How this has worked out in practice.

[joechiu]

I use a 10D and set the "diive" to multiple shots for action. But I don't get that many blurry shots, just bad ones or ones focused on the wrong thing.

I've found that each sport has it's own learning curve. But here is a formula for taking action pictures of kids:

Get the camera low and stable. It's best at about the subjects' waist level. I bring a beach chair and stabalize the camera with elbows and knees.
I try to find a position that will be close enough to the good action and where the movement will be toward me, giving me a longer time to shoot and less need to pan.
I use a moderate telephoto and open it up all the way. This gets fast exposures and blurs the background. Downside is that foculs is critical and if there are multiple subjects the depth of field can be a problem.
I do set the drive to multiple. I think the 10D shoots 3 fps at this setting.
If I were a better photographer, I'd probably have more than one formula that works. My good action shots have a similarity. You can look at http://rutt.smugmug.com/Sports to see. How this has worked out in practice.Excellent list. The two things I do differently is to set the camera at shoulder height of the players to give a slight "downward angle" in the shots, and I use a monopod to hold the camera so that I can follow the game easily and then whip the camera right in front of my face when I want to start shooting.