Shooting in Sports Mode on the Rebel T6i/750D

Sports mode on the Rebel T6i/750D results in a number of settings that can help you photograph moving subjects, such as the soccer player in this figure. First, the camera selects a fast shutter speed, which is needed to stop motion. Shutter speed is an exposure control.

To capture moving subjects and minimize blur, try Sports mode.

Colors, sharpness, and contrast are all standard in Sports mode, with none of the adjustments that occur in Portrait and Landscape modes.

Other settings to note include the ­following:

• Drive mode: To enable rapid‐fire image capture, the Drive mode is set to Continuous by default. This mode enables you to record multiple frames with a single press of the shutter button.

• Flash: Flash is disabled, which can be a problem in low‐light situations but also enables you to shoot more quickly because the flash needs time to recycle between shots. In addition, disabling the flash permits a faster shutter speed; when the flash is on, the maximum shutter speed is 1/200 second, which may not be fast enough to freeze quickly moving subjects.

• Autofocusing: The AF mode is set to AI Servo, which is designed for moving subjects. When you press the shutter button halfway, the camera establishes focus on whatever is at the center of the frame. But if the subject moves, the camera attempts to refocus up to the moment you take the picture. For this feature to work correctly, you must adjust framing so that your subject remains within the autofocusing brackets.

  If you're using Live View, it's vital that you have Continuous AF enabled. Otherwise, you should manually focus when shooting action

  For this feature to work correctly, you must adjust framing so that your subject remains within the autofocus brackets.

The other critical thing to understand about Sports mode is that whether the camera can select a shutter speed fast enough to stop motion depends on the available light and the speed of the subject itself. In dim lighting, a subject that's moving at a rapid pace may appear blurry even when photographed in Sports mode. And the camera may need to increase light sensitivity by boosting the ISO setting, which has the unhappy side effect of creating noise, a defect that looks like grains of sand.