My try at cheerleading and basketball...

[My2Girls66]

Any c&c to help me get better shots?
All taken with D80, 50mmf/1.8 on manual- no pp except a few crops.

1/250, f/2, iso800

1/250, f/2, iso800

1/250, f/2, iso800

f/2, 1/200, iso800

1/250, f/2.8, iso800- cropped quite a bit-DD14

1/400, f/1.8, iso 800, cropped a little

This I took thru the moon roof of my car on the way home.

1/250, f/5.6, iso100, 70-300mmVR at 300mm, cropped a bit

 

[VVFF]

I have a feeling that you forgot to try portrait orientation. From the look of the basketball pictures, you would have captured a more "interesting" area by using portrait orientation. Take for example the picture where the ball is almost in the net. You are capturing very far over to the left of the net. The interest should lie in the immediate players, the ball and the net/backboard. Because your using that orientation, you just barely get the ball in the frame. If it were a bit farther from the edge of the picture it would feel more "balanced".

The "majorly cropped" cheerleading picture needs to be brightened a bit as its a bit underexposed as is. This makes it a bit dull looking.

The first basketball picture is another that would benefits from portrait orientation. However, I have a feeling if you cropped it down to just the two players it would be a very cool picture.

Looks like the low F-stop really helped you though. Good work!

 

[My2Girls66]

Brightened version. I am not good at PP so I let Paint Shop brighten it.
I did take a few portrait shots towards the end- none came out very good. I'll try more next time. Thanks for the help I have a 70-210 f/4 lens but it seems like I needed 2.8 or wider to get fast enough- I was close enough that the 50mm was ok.

 

[VVFF]

Brightened version. I am not good at PP so I let Paint Shop brighten it.
I did take a few portrait shots towards the end- none came out very good. I'll try more next time. Thanks for the help I have a 70-210 f/4 lens but it seems like I needed 2.8 or wider to get fast enough- I was close enough that the 50mm was ok.

Looks much better to me!

I agree that you probably needed the f2.8 or you would be forced to ISO 1600. In the future perhaps you could get a fast telephoto prime to bring you a bit closer if you find it suits your situation better.

 

[handicap18]

Nice work. The basketball action shots came out nice. Pretty good exposure and pretty sharp. I think they definately need some cropping. I would crop both of the ones you posted to portrait orientation focusing on just the center part of each of these images. You may want to brighten up the first one just a bit. The action right under the basket is great, but there are lots of distractions to the left and righ to the shot.

You didn't say if you shoot in RAW, if so, this is where RAW is helpful. Cropping, you wont lose as much as you would by cropping a JPEG. The 50mm f/1.8 lens is still sharp enough that it should still give you a pretty good image if you crop it by almost 50%.

That cheerleader shot that you brightened up, you may also want to crop that a little more to focus more on just her. That is a very good capture, but IMO, cropping it a little more will make it even better.

Keep shooting!!