For the track and field meet, I experimented with rear autofocus. That means my shutter button only took the picture, and my exposure button on the back of the camera controlled the autofocus feature. This let me set my focal length as the runners were approaching my position, then just snap the shot—without my camera trying to refocus-as soon as they came into focus. If my focus was too far away and the runners were too small, or too close and I couldn't capture enough of the runners, I just re-focused further or closer with my rear focus button. It's not much of an improvement over just using manual focus, but it was interesting.
Good football photos are hard to take when your team gets slaughtered 40-7. Towards the end of the game I was looking for shots expressing exasperation, anger or frustration from our players, but this was an even more difficult task than taking good shots of a team who barely squeaked out 100 total yards. When you look at really great professional photos from the best photojournalists, they have always captured "the moment" or they express an emotion with incredible clarity. There's a reason only the best catch these shots, but I don't think it's necessarily because they have an extra sense for where and when to point their cameras. I know where and when to point my camera, I see the moments I want to capture. I think you get those perfect shots purely by luck, and the only way to increase your chance of catching the moment or the emotion is to take lots of photos.
