Hi, I've been the owner of a Rebel T1i for 10 years now, bought used. It stopped working and I just picked up a 7D used for almost nothing. My Tamron 28-75 f2.8, bought specifically for gymnastics meets, is what typically lives on my camera.
I tried to take a class when I got the first DSLR but a weekend was not anywhere near enough time to learn and practice and I reverted to auto for basically everything. I used the sports setting heavily for gymnastics and taekwondo.
There is no sports auto on this puppy, and while I really want to actually learn to use it, I'd also like it to work for me *now.* Like I am fully willing to learn what the most likely useful setting is, or what the sports setting on the canon rebel uses, and go with it until I learn.
I wasn't going to post this question, but I saw how helpful you had been to so many asking similar questions on this forum, I thought I'd gve it a shot. This is definitely more camera than I have any business owning, but the 8 fps has me 
.
Also, does anyone know a good online course for DSLR beginners? Once that moves slow with a lot of reinforcement or repitition? Thank you so much.
OK, I definitely got happier with my pictures as TKD went on. I started in shutter priority but quickly switched to aperature priority and bumped the ISO up just a hair from what it was automatically setting. I'm sorry Burn Unit, I only saw your comment as the class was winding down. I'll save the EXIF data in the future. I did shoot in RAW this time and then do a quick edit and crop on importing to Photoshop and resized for the forum.
Advice for what type of focus I should be using in these situations?
f 2.8, 1/250, ISO 320, 28mm
f 2.8, 1/320, ISO 320, 28mm
f 2.8, 1/250, ISO 320, 28mm
f2.8, 1/320, ISO 320, 48mm
ebiggs, I followed your suggestion at TKD this morning, but I am not sure what happened. I hardly managed to get a single in focus shot, manual or auto, even though they looked in focus on my LCD, even zoomed in. 
I'll try again. All those photos were cropped in PS after the fact. I am familiar with levels and masks, but in a digital graphics and art capacity and not in a photo editing capacity. I've adjusted levels before. I downloaded lightroom for a free trial, but just wasn't up to trying to learn yet another new thing last night. I did my adjustments in the tool PS gives you when you open a RAW photo.
I was pretty happy with this though, shot on manual. f 3.5, 1/200, ISO 200, 28 mm.
@Sk8ermaiden wrote:ebiggs, I followed your suggestion at TKD this morning, but I am not sure what happened. I hardly managed to get a single in focus shot, manual or auto, even though they looked in focus on my LCD, even zoomed in.
I was pretty happy with this though, shot on manual. f 3.5, 1/200, ISO 200, 28 mm.
Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop is the same editing engine as Lightroom. If you are comfortable using Ps stick with it..
What was your focus setting? If you are in Single Shot AF the camera won't take a photo if the image isn't in focus. But focus can't address motion blur if the subject is moving. Can you post an out of focus image along with shooting data?
I don't remember what focus setting I used here. I cycled through at least three, including one-shot and manual, and I think the AI focus. I don't believe I used al-Servo today because I was trying out the others. They ALL look like this or worse.
You're doing something different in your editing. The first shot shows the EXIF data but it's missing in the second one.
The first one was edited and saved from photoshop and the second was only resized so it was a generic windows photo program. I'll go resize it in PS.
@Sk8ermaiden wrote:
I don't remember what focus setting I used here. I cycled through at least three, including one-shot and manual, and I think the AI focus. I don't believe I used al-Servo today because I was trying out the others. They ALL look like this or worse.
One Shot Auto with single center point is correct for this setting. AI Focus is a setting i recommend you do not use. It is marketed as an "intelligent" mode that will select one shot when a subject is static and switch to AI Servo if it detects subject motion. AI Servo is good for tracking subjects that are moving around the screen or to/from the photographer. Problem is 1. sometimes it can get confused if photographer isn't steady (can't discriminate between subject motion and camera motion) and 2. AI Servo doesn't lock focus (it's calculating what focus distance is based on subject motion).
It looks like the camera was focused in front of the subject. The red markings look OK in the front and you can see focus fall off as the tape "ladder pattern" goes towards the rear wall.
