Shooting Advice

[Andy_Burnton]

Sorry if I seem to be hogging this group with questions, I just felt I couldn't put both together in the one post.

I take photos for our karate club at weekend courses which are in large halls with either tungsten or sodium overhead lights. In the past I've sucessfully used my EOS3000 with 1600, scanned the photos and doctored them in Photoshop before putting them on our website.

I just purchased a second hand D30 and a 50mm f1.8 prime lens to cut out the processing/scanning part of the operation.

I don't like using flash 'cause it distracts the people practicing (especially the kids) and could result in an injury. Anyway, any time i've tried using flash the white suit flares and the background ends up dark.

My problem is:

I seem to have difficulty with auto focus. It seems to "hunt" and I can't fire.

Movement is blurred (something that didn't happen with the old system).

I'm sure it's me not using the equipment properly.

Any advise / tips.

Thanks

[henkbos]

Seems to be the slow autofocus of the D30. Also autofocus in poor light conditions doesn't perform well. The blurring might have been caused by longer shutter speeds. Did you try the highest ISO setting? You should be able to take shots in a normal lit sportshall.
An option might be to bounce the flash off the ceiling to get softer light.
You can alos try to 'pre-focus'. Set it on a certain distance, switch off auto-focus, make sure you have an aperture that allows you to have depth of focus and fire away.

Good luck.