Action shots!!

[cateedoodle]

i have a canon rebel xti... i take lots of still shots and they turn out ok.i took some pictures of some bullriders and some were great and some were blurry.what am i doing wrong?

[Morph]

more than likely not enough light for the shot...a think the rule of thumb is shutter speed should equal or greater than focal length for hand held shots. I do think the crop factor for the XTI also should be included but not 100% sure. So at 100mm you should have a shutter speed of 1/160 or faster. I'm sure someone will correct me because I'm human and tend to forget and yes also get those good shots but then find out i was slow on the shutter speed. I guess using an external flash with good range would make sure it doesn't happen, but that will have you worrying about other things like too much flash or the lack of being allowed to use the flash.
I hope I helped.

[taustin]

I would say the real mistake was you left the camera in full auto mode, and let it choose shutter speed and aperature. Play with the priority modes, so you can select the shutter speed (for action shots) and let the camera handle the aperature (or tell you there's not enough light for the current setting).