Outdoor Sports Photographs

[tricia108]

Hi there everyone,
I have a bunch of friends that participate in team roping and I LOVE to take pictures of them. Of course, they do most of their riding at noon so the lighting is always really harsh. Just to add to the bad lighting, the action is always very fast ( a typical run is 5 seconds). One more thing to the mix, is the dust. It's everywhere and seems to make my pics seem brighter and overexposed, which I don't need with the sun beaming overhead.
What is a good way to deal with all of these problems? If I adjust ISO then I seem to have problems with clarity.
I'm really new at this so I just keeping trying different things but I can't seem to nab the perfect recipe.
Please help!!!

[jdepould]

Start with 1/1000s, f/5.6 @ ISO200. If you need to change the exposure, try aperture first, then shutter speed.

[waffles]

I'm assuming you have a DSLR since you haven't told us what you have to work with.

Knock the exposure compensation so that it's set to underexpose. You'll have to play around with it to see what works right, but I hardly go about -1/3.

Know where the wind is blowing and get between it and the dust. You won't be able to totally get rid of it, but you can keep it off the camera. And really, is the dust hurting the shot that much? Only you can answer that since we haven't seen anyof the photographs you've gotten.

What mode are you using? ISO has to do with light sensitivity, and when I read you're having clarity problems it makes me think that you're letting the camera decide what the shutter speed should be. I don't trust my camera with that kind of decision with fast moving action.

[tricia108]

Thanks so much guys. I've tried it out a bit but, of course, this weekend we were indoors and the problems were completely different. I think I got it figured out pretty good tho.
Thanks again!!