Help! Blurry soccer photos - EOS Rebel series & 70-300mm lens

[joannatalbot]

Hi all,

I'm taking pics of my son's high school soccer games using a Canon EOS Rebel 17 with a 70-300mm lens (in the daylight) and find many come out blurry. 

I have tried the AF and sports settings but still most of my photos are out of focus. Sometimes nothing in the photo is in focus -- it's not even like the camera is focusing on the wrong thing.

As a beginner, I do find that my pictures are wider than I would like -- it's hard to get in close when the action moves so quickly -- so I'm sure that isn't helping, but even wide shots come out blurry.

Please advise!

[ebiggs1]

Hard to disagree with Rodger as his photos show but, "Set the AF to servo and for best performance set the AF point to center only and keep that on your subject ..." I did beginner photography lessons for a couple years and saw Ai-servo causing way more problems that it ever helped. My advice is to use One shot. The big difference is One shot won't fire the shutter if the camera can't obtain focus. Ai-servo will fire focused or not. I never noticed Ai-servo being any faster focusing either so that's not a factor.  I like using just the center focus point

I really like to say baby steps learn to walk before you tackle the long jump. Get some good shots under your belt first. Later as you become more familiar with it you can try Ai-servo and some other focus/exposure features.