Action Shots

[dring1]

I am a photographic ignoramus. I am used to the old PHD cameras (Press Here Dummy). I would like to know how to take action photos of my kids moving on the soccer field (indoors and outdoors) and also on an indoor hockey rink. I just bought an S30, but do not have a clue (yet) as to what all of the different settings and functions will do. I tried a few shots on the indoor field. First I tried shooting in auto mode, but since my son was running, the shots were blurry. Then I tried the continuous mode, but the images were still pretty fuzzy. Can anyone please give me the crib notes for the proper settings for the above described scenarios?
Thanks

[bigdave]

Quite nice of you to want to capture your kids in action on the field or in the rink. All ya gotta do is use the action setting and continuous mode. Action mode is selected by twisting the dial on top to the picture of the little running man. Have fun!

[Maestro]

Maybe a little more detailed explanation of how to get good action shots, in case the 'sport' setting on the camera doesn't produce the desired effect (the setting essentially cranks the ISO up and the shutter speed to the highest setting, which may cause some problems indoors)...

Hockey can be difficult because it's indoors and you're too far away from the action to use a flash, or expect it to be of any use. So, technically what is needed to capture action shots are:
A high speed film - in digital photography we still use the ISO film speed rating which indicates sensitivity to light. You tend to get a lot more noise in a picture with high ISO numbers (400 is high for a digital camera). But you'd rather deal with noise than blur right? So, make sure you have ISO 400 selected.
A fast shutter - how fast the shutter opens and closes obviously has an effect on how much blur you will get in an image. The downside to this is that the faster the shutter the less exposure the film or CCD will get. Outside in a bright evening or day this isn't much of a problem, indoors it can be a killer problem, you'll wind up with a bunch of dark, underexposed images. Luckily you can start off by bracketing a test shot (Camera setting which takes 3 consecutive pictures, Under exposing, properly exposing and over exposing the pictures). Find where the colours appear vibrant and whites look white not grey, that's the setting you'll want to use for exposure. Play around with the shutter speeds and exposure values to get some very interesting pictures.

[tomx15]

I've used the A40 for a month already. I've notice the smae problems and there is no fix. If you want to point and shoot for a quick picture, this is NOT the camera for you.

If you can stand to have your subject stand still for 10 seconds, then this is an excellent camera.

...these are just my experiences.