Sports on G6

I just joined my high school newspaper to be a photographer with my G6. Is there a certain setting that I should use that would be useful for these types of shots. They said that they would assign me to certain sports events, and take pictures. Like should I use the manual settings? Which ones would be better? And yet another question, which lens do you think would be good to use here? I have the telephoto lense, and am hopefully going to be getting the wide angle this Christmas. Or should I just leave it as it is without the lens adpater?

You can either try using Manual or Tv. In TV you specify the shutter speed and your camera will then choose the proper aperture. For good sport shots you'll need to use a fast shutter speed to be able to freeze the moment (1/125, 1/250). A tripod would be nice too. In M you have to choose both the aperture and the shutter speed. It's a bit more complicated than TV but it doesn't take long to learn. Read the G6 manual if you have it. You can always find it on the internet.

Good luck!

If you are talking about sports events, Manual is too slow. Use Av.

It depends on whether we are talking daylight action or indoor or night action. In daylight, you will be ok.

Low light will be the challenge. In low light, your goal is to increase shutter speed to get sharp shots without blur. Some of the things you do are detrimental to the quality of the shot. Especially ISO.

To get the most light into the camera and still have correct exposure you:
Open the aperture all the way in Av mode (lowest number)
Widest angle (zoomed out)
High ISO
Use flash (many times a bad idea)

You can prevent camera shake with a tripod but that won't help with moving objects.

Take lots of shots and try different things and be prepared to be disappointed at first. You have a wonderful camera. It's weakest points are in the area you are talking about. However, the G6 probably isn't any worse than other P&S cameras. It's just so much better in good light that it makes its low light / action shots struggle worse.

I have found the G6 a camera that's not sports friendly, but i found that using the view finder better than the LCD screen the camera isn't having to use the screen that would slow it down a bit more than usual. I tried to use mine in the sport that i do, (martial arts) and wasn't very happy at all, but with a little bit of timeing and practice it will pay off, take a look at the pic my instructor took of me......

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.