help for a newby

I've been playing a lot lately with our new sony F828 camera. I've read the manual at least two dozen times and have an understanding (not a good understanding, just an understanding) of what the manual controls do. My wife and I have been shooting in automatice modes or semiautomatic modes and imo have gotten some great pics. I think I've got a decent grasp of when to use shutter speed priority mode and use that the most when shooting the kids, but when and how do you use aperature priority mode? I tried it the other day and depending on how bright my subject was (my kids in the yard) the shutter speed would change from WAY slow (steady hand icon on the lcd) to fast. I found myself spinning the command dial a lot adjusting the aperature for whenever my boys stepped out into the sun or into the shade. Also, when do you use the saturation, contrast, and sharpness +/- controls? Also one last thing, how do you focus onto a moving subject, that is moving either away from you are towards you? My kids don't stay put, and autofocus doesn't focus that fast, or it'll lock and then they'll move a few feet and the photo is blurry. If you use manual focus, how to you focus it so fast? Any, that's a bunch of questions in one post. Thanks for your patience. And we are looking to buy a photography book this week.

You're hooked! I like it :D

Your lens aperture - the size of the opening - not only controls how much light reaches the sensor, it also controls the depth-of-field. You probably don't notice the drastic changes in aperture when you change lighting situations because you just don't understand the aperture as much. But it will change just as much as the shutter speed when you're in aperture priority mode. They both have to compensate for the same amount of light.

I use aperture priority when I am concerned with depth-of-field. For portraits I like a very shallow depth-of-field and I'll try to keep the aperture at about f/2.8. For landscape, lots of depth is usually desirable. So you might want to use an aperture of f/11, f/22 or smaller. The larger the number, the smaller the aperture (size of the lens opening). A larger aperture will also give you a faster shutter speed since it's allowing more light to reach the sensor. Is it making more sense now?

One of the obvious weaknesses of most non-pro digital cameras is the AF. People who have kids often have a very hard time with this. The 828 has continuous autofocus although I don't know how well it works. I never tried it while I had the 828. All of the mountain bike shots I did were prefocused. Try the continuous autofocus with your kids and if that doesn't work, try to pre-focus. I wouldn't bother trying to use the manual focus. That's just not going to work.

Yes, I'm hooked. My oldest (3 years) started pee wee t-ball and his first "game" was yesterday. I took a good 60+ shots (filled my memory stick). Parently getting in the way killed a number of them. I was being good and stayed off the field, but other parents weren't, walked right out on to the field and made my life hard! The sun was setting, and the field wasn't oriented in a favorable direction, so the only shot of my boy hitting the ball off of the T has a HUGE glare down the middle of it.

Anyway, I read some definitions on the glosarry page of dpreview.dom, trying to get a good understanding of aperature effects. So, with a small f number, your depth of view, or the focus range (?) is narrow, but with a small aperature or larger f number, your depth of range is wider. Would I be correct in saying then with the larger f number you could be off a little more on your focus and still get a sharp image??? and also is depth of view like the range of focus (depth, I guess). If I get an understanding of the why's and what fors, it's a lot easier to remember. Just memorizing rules rarely works for me. I need reasons, darn it!!!

Thanks for your help!! :)

Why did you have to go to dpreview to use a glossary? Use the glossary here. We've got what you need:

Photography Glossary >>
If you find any terms missing, just let me know.

Your understanding of depth-of-field and aperture is correct. And you're right about using your aperture to help your focus. When I want a little "padding" with a moving subject, I'll often "stop down". "Stop down" means to use a smaller aperture. That gives you more depth-of-field, which means you don't have to focus quite as accurately.

I am using an IBM compactflash 1gig microdrive and speed is great... the BEST part is that they are so much less expensive than the 'stick', although I have a 256 'Pro' as a backup.
also:
I am NOT affiliated with THIS company, but have recently bought 3 NP-FM50 batteries from them (around 11.00/ea) and they have proven to be EXEPTIONAL... avg time 2.5 - 3 hrs/per and the camera has no problem recognizing the Info-Lithium status... see www.power101.com