Wrestling and Basketball games

I have the G6 and the 430 EX as you can see in my signature. I was assigned to cover a wrestling match and basketball game for my high school's newspaper. What are some good settings that i should use to receive the best results?

Use as fast a shutterspeed as the conditions will allow.
set on Av * F2 and see what shutter speed comes up when you half press the shutter release.
If it is less than 1/200
re-set the iso speed to 200 and try again.
if still not 1/200 or better Reset Iso to 400
You can't set faster than this, so what ever shutter speed comes up will have to do.

If you have a seperate flash you could use that for close work but the pics are never as good.

Focus is another factor.
I use manual... it reduces the lag whilst the camera finds finds focus.
I use the scale and estimate the distance ...the depth of focus even at f2 is quite large.

Say you want to get someone dunking the net, focus on the deck in front of the net ...half press the release and wait. when some one starts his jump. press the release all the way. with a bit of luch the delay in the shutter and the rest of his jump will equal out and you will get about one in five shotsthat are ok.

The best thing is to try it with one of your mates before the game,this lets you find the setting that works, get the right position. and even more important gives you some practice.

Terry

This is a shot of my grand son playing squash for his local team.
Using the same method as I gave above.

The final setting came out at 1/250 sec and f4. at iso400 on my G3
some of the noise has been removed with noise ninja The G3 is noiser than the G6 at 400

The other problem was it was shot through very thich glass.

Thanks for your advice Terry! I really appreciate it.