sports shots-- Optio 555

I used the Optio to take some pics in an indoor gym-- bad idea.

The combination of yellow, dim lighting indoors, combined with the fast action of the subjects, was a recipe for disaster. Yes, I used a tripod.

I tried the sport mode but found the lighting was too poor for this to be useful. I tried the night mode (figuring it would let in some more light) but then the pics were too blurry. Also, the shutter delay caused me to miss some potentially great shots.

I realize that such shortcomings are not really unique to this camera. I've taken amazing pictures under other conditions, and most digital cameras don't perform that well under the conditions I described.

That said, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can maximize the quality of the image under such circumstances?

Thanks in advance.
Pixie

Well i am a hacker but even i know you need to get yourself out of pre-set modes.

Turn the dial to shutter priority and set the speed to the slowest possible before it starts to blur ... start at about 1/100 and see what happens. Set your ISO to 200. Turn your flash off. Set your whitebalance manually .. you are probably under incandescant light, hence the yellow tone, so set it manually.

That outta do it.

Couple of tips I'd try:

1. Try adjusting the color balance setting. If the lighting is consistent across the floor, you'll usually get best results using manual white balance. Otherwise, if it's incadescent lighting, try setting the white balance appropriate. For mercury vapor, the flourescent setting is usually the best. For sodium vapor, try manual white balance, but it's a difficult light to work with.

2. Set the ISO to 400. You get a lot of noise, but that can be corrected somewhat using a noise reduction software package (e.g. NeatImage, Noise Ninja, etc.). This will give you the fastest available shutter speed.

3. Set the camera to Aperture Priority (Av), then set the aperture to f/2.8 (it'll automatically adjust to f/4.6 at the telephoto end). This will keep the lense wide open, allowing the fastest shutter speed.

4. Depending on your location, the sporting event, etc. you might want to use manual focusing to allow focusing within a area or "zone". This will significantly reduce the shutter latency to allow capturing "peak" action ("peak" action creates more interesting shots and also allows slower shutter speeds since the player is nearly still). Because of the smaller sensor size, the Optio 555 has a fairly large depth of field which make "zone" focusing more practical.

5. Be sure to disable flash.

6. Take a couple of test shots and check exposures. Depending on your shooting angle (from the stands, floor, etc.) you might get a lot of light reflection from the gym floor which will "fool" the auto exposure system and cause underexposure. If so, you can use exposure compensation. Alternately, you can shoot in Manual Exposure mode (M), but you'll have to adjust the shutter speed as the aperture changes (between f/2.8 and f/4.6 due to zooming) and lighting differences on the floor.

If the above setting yields a shutter speed above about 1/500, you can dial down to use an ISO of 200.

Hope this helps.

James