What are the best settings to take action photos with a Nikon D50?

Answer 1

I tend to do things differently. I set my camera to aperture-priority and dial in a low aperture number. This minimizes the shutter time and also creates a shallow depth of field to isolate the subject.
Then, if neccessary to tweak the shutter speed, I crank up the ISO. I aim for shutter speeds from 1/500th to completely feeze the action, to as slow as 1/60th for intentional motion blur. The D50 has the best high ISO image quality of any Nikon dSLR - better than my D200 - and you can safely use ISO 800 for full page prints. You could also use the D50's auto-iso feature. This tells the camera to stick to a minimum shutter speed and let the ISO fall where it may, but I like to stay in control.
If the action isn't flying all over the place, I'll use only the central AF point. This gives the fastest AF speed. If the action is practically stationary, I don't use AF at all and shave off another fraction of a second (on my D200, I use a seperate button on the back of the camera for AF, so my shutter button never triggers the AF anyway.)
Like Dr. Sam suggests, I keep the camera in continuous shooting mode. When things get hectic, I can try to time a single shot precisely, or I can simply 'spray and pray'. The D200 does 5 FPS, so I'll get lucky grabs this way more often than I would with a D50.
For the rest, I usually keep the settings on automatic and use best quality jpg. There are times when I use the histogram with exposure compensation, or take a reading with the spot meter and go fully manual, but usually the matrix meter works just fine. Same goes for the white balance. I usually leave it in automatic and make adjustments on my computer. If a shot is REALLY important, I'll tweak everything, use the histogram, bracket the shot and switch to RAW, but for sports that usually isn't practical.

Answer 2

It is definitely possible, i took a few shots at medieval times a month ago that were acceptable (i didn't have my flash unit and it still worked out OK) One option is to use the shutter priority mode, that way you can set your shutter speed to 60 (this is as low as i would go without a tripod as well, you may have to raise this to at least 125 to capture a animal, etc moving at a moderate speed. Mind you this will cut out a lot of light) and the camera will auto adjust the aperture (f-stop) Also set your ISO to as low as possible for the room conditions (i would venture to guess ISO 400 MIGHT be acceptable, i don't think the lights would be kept all that low at a rodeo...I would be carefull about raising the ISO above 600 with your d50) You can always set your camera to auto mode (i don't have a d50 but i shoot with a d100 and d300, in my case the auto mode is indicated by the letter P on my dial. You can still control the ISO setting in this case, once again be carefull about punching it up too high as you'll get more noise the higher you go) Rodeos would be great to shoot, I'm jealous :) do you post your pics?

Answer 3

You can use the SPORT mode as Rich Z said, or you can set your camera to "S" for shutter priority and choose 1/500th of a second and let the camera set the aperture.

You can also select the continuous mode (see page 21 of your manual) and just hold the shutter button down while you capture 2.5 frames per second instead of trying to get the ONE perfect picture. You can delete, delete, delete the ones that are not what you are trying to get. You'll need a decent memory card for this, though, such as a 1 GB Sandisk Ultra II or equivalent.

Answer 4

Use the SPORTS setting. It looks like a guy running. To verify you have the right one chosen, press the "?" button on back of camera and it will show "Take dynamic shots of moving subjects."