D300, 300mm f/2.8 VR
1/40s, f/8 @ ISO400

This was one of my early attempts, I took the Syracuse v. Villanova game, and decided to shoot the second quarter with all slow speeds. That way I had plenty of time to shoot more typical stuff, but I had a lot of time to experiment as well.

This was manual exposure mode. I metered the scene and chimped on the histogram, then dialed in my shutter speed and aperture to match. It seems like speeds between 1/20 and 1/60 work best, at least for Lacrosse. If you get any faster than 1/60s, then the blur starts to look unintentional, and you get too much background detail. Slower than 1/20s makes it difficult to get a lock on your subject, so everything is just a blurry mess.

I should also note, this was also shot with a monopod. Hand-holding a 300/2.8 is kind of a pain to begin with, let alone when you’re panning.

D700, 300mm f/2.8 VR
1/40s, f/7.1 @ ISO200

Similar arrangement as before, slightly sharper.

Here’s what 1/25s looks like:

D700, 300mm f/2.8 VR
1/25s, f/9 @ ISO200

I also discovered a nice little AE lock trick to lock in an exposure value, while allowing shutter and aperture to move around.

It requires a little menu punching, but it makes this sort of thing a lot quicker.

I don’t trust the meter a whole bunch in this situation. I like to set my exposure manually, and leave it there. The problem is that turning both dials in opposite directions at the same time is hard.

First, set the meter off delay to infinite. Yes, it’ll eat into your battery life, but if you’re like me, your finger is always on the shutter anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

Next, set the AE-L/AF-L button to AE lock hold. This removes the meter from the equation entirely, while giving you single-dial control over both shutter and aperture.

Flip the camera to shutter priority. Set your exposure and hit the AE-L. It’ll stay locked until you press it again to unlock. Now, when you turn the shutter speed dial, the aperture dial will move the same amount in the opposite direction to maintain your locked exposure. For example: your exposure is 1/60s, f/8. If you turn the dial to 1/40s, the aperture will shift to f/10. No meter to get confused, it’ll do that every time until you unlock it.

Now it’s just a matter of finding your shutter speed/panning comfort zone, and trying to anticipate the action. Even with an 8 or 9 fps motor drive, this technique reduces your chances for capturing the exact moment, so you really have to be on top of it.

You may want to set this up as a custom preset, apart from your normal settings. That way you can just flip it on and off with one click, and you won’t be running around with your meter constantly running when you don’t want it to be.