Best D200 focus & metering settings for sports photography

I am shooting at outdoor tennis tournament and would welcome recommendations regarding best settings for focus mode, focus-area selection, AF-area mode and metering.

Generally speaking, I prefer shooting one player at a time with subject filling as much of image as possible.

You may find this article useful: http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/nikon_articles/body/d200_multi-cam1000_af/nikon_d200_multi-cam1000_review_2.html
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Kind regards
Kaj
http://www.pbase.com/kaj_e
WSSA member

Thank you so much for the referenced article. It was more than I could ask for.

If you happen to know of a similar article on metering, please let me know.

Again...many, many thanks...Alan

I don't know how much you know about metering and have not really recently read any on-line tutorials on this topic. One link posted today on this forum about the basics: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-metering.htm .

My thinking for the situation you describe:

If the lighting is even (not back lighting with the main lighting behind the players) you could probably use matrix metering which aims at getting the exposure right (on average) for the whole image.

If your subject is in the middle of the frame and fills most of it, center weighted metering might work.

The metering I use the most for action is spot metering. In this case you set the spot metering to the same location as the focus point. For tennis players in light clothes you may need to dial in some positive exposure compensation (the camera assumes that the spot metered area is of medium tone so you need to correct for the actual value). This metering mode assures correct metering at the spot area, but you may risk some blown out highlights which may be disturbing (and/or under-exposed background which generally is not a problem). Spot metering is also good for back lit subjects.

Whatever metering you choose check out the histogram after the first few shots and make any correction you may wish. Then every now and then do it again in case lighting changes.

I would also shoot RAW which would give the best chance to change the exposure in post-production.
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Kind regards
Kaj
http://www.pbase.com/kaj_e
WSSA member