I'm so miserable

Methodical wrote in post #13274708
Yep. I recently shot 1/2 a game (JV HS football) with my shutter speed set to 1/8000th and ISO at 12,800 in daylight. That was the 1st game. The 2nd game (varsity) I realized the camera was not tracking the action and after thinking the camera had gone loco, I realized I had the pre-focus switched on the lens, so not only did I shoot the 1st game at ISO 12,800, but most were out of focus, as well as the 2nd game. What a day.

Do you ever chimp....or even look at the VF?

Most times no, but when I do I don't pay attention to the settings just the image.

wfarrell4 wrote in post #13274714
Do you ever chimp....or even look at the VF?

When I shoot marathons, I usually preset all my settings the night before then I use those settings on the first few runners that come my way. (The front runners never buy photos anywho because they are essentially pros traveling the nation.. so it doesn't matter if their photos are sub-par). After taking photos of a few runners, I chimp and re-set all my settings based on the exact conditions. If there are people milling around in the area pre-race I will use those as my test-subjects, but often I like to be in an area where there are few people around so as to not have distracting backgrounds.

sega62 wrote in post #13270998
How about the word idiot, would that suit's me fine!!!
Gee, I feel like a ass

Not an idiot. Just a newbee. Everyone of us started somewhere.

If you don't have a good foundation in DSLR photography, then pick up "Understanding Exposure" by Brian Peterson.

That book put me on the right path from the start.

I shoot sports a lot. Did a karate event last weekend. Many times I have gone a while into my shoot and noticed that I have some setting in a terrible place for that shoot.

So I have developed a little ritual of checking everything before starting. It helps me.

guntoter wrote in post #13279603
Not an idiot. Just a newbee. Everyone of us started somewhere.

If you don't have a good foundation in DSLR photography, then pick up "Understanding Exposure" by Brian Peterson.

That book put me on the right path from the start.

I shoot sports a lot. Did a karate event last weekend. Many times I have gone a while into my shoot and noticed that I have some setting in a terrible place for that shoot.

So I have developed a little ritual of checking everything before starting. It helps me.

I have no trouble for exposure since I use LIVE VIEW LCD a lot before I shoot.
For landscape or night shooting.
I did not try sport apart from my experience a few days ago at the arena!

I know that exposure is critical, but since it's just for fun, I have a lot of time on my hands to experience with the camera, my main concern are when I want a perfect exposure like black and white or area that are too dark vs the bright ones.

sega62 wrote in post #13280279
I have no trouble for exposure since I use LIVE VIEW LCD a lot before I shoot.
For landscape or night shooting.
I did not try sport apart from my experience a few days ago at the arena!

I know that exposure is critical, but since it's just for fun, I have a lot of time on my hands to experience with the camera, my main concern are when I want a perfect exposure like black and white or area that are too dark vs the bright ones.

You should learn how to estimate the proper exposure settings without using the LV Histogram. You should be able to decide whether DOF or SS is the priority in your images and adjust the other options accordingly. It's not about spinning this one that way and the other another way until the histogram is where you want it - which is probably why you were in f22.

wfarrell4 wrote in post #13280325
You should learn how to estimate the proper exposure settings without using the LV Histogram. You should be able to decide whether DOF or SS is the priority in your images and adjust the other options accordingly. It's not about spinning this one that way and the other another way until the histogram is where you want it - which is probably why you were in f22.

Well when I ''spin'' like you mentioned, I get to see what I actually shoot with the ''exposure simulation'' that we get to see on the screen.
Sure I don't see the real size of the pic until I get home and see what I've done good or bad, but It helps a lot to get nice picture, so far it's a charm.
But I'm ready to learn more about how to calculate DOF and all the other
variations that makes our pic the way we want it, but it takes time to remember all these functions.

I'm old

About the F22, it was a mistake, believe me!

Whatever works for you is fine with me.