Panazonic DMC-FZ7 -- How to take action shots?

Note to self: check spelling NOT ONLY in post, BUT ALSO in Subject title.

P-A-N-A-S-O-N-I-C

Blurred photos.
If the entire photo is blurred, your problem is camera movement.
If the people in the photo are blurred, your shutter speed is too slow.

I assume that your karate test is indoors under artificial lighting.

If the room is well lit, you should be able to get better results.

Anytime you increase the shutter speed, you need to increase the light. Since you can't do that, you have to work with what you have.

First....make sure you have the flash turned off.

Set your camera to ''shutter priority'' mode.
Then set your camera shutter speed to about 1/250th of a second.
Your camera will automatically select an f-stop and ISO setting to produce a perfect exposure.

If there is enough light in the room, you should get a perfectly exposed shot.
Examine the photo, for blurring of the subjects.
If you get none, you can try using a slower shutter speed (say 1/100th of a second).
If you did get blurring of the subject, try increasing the shutter speed to 1/500th of a second.

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If there is not enough light in the room with the shutter speed at 1/250th of a second, the camera warns you of the problem, take the photo anyway.
You will get a photo that is not light enough.

That means you MUST lower the shutter speed (say to 1/60th of a second).
You may get some blurring of the subject(s), but you either have to settle for that or a dark photo.

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All cameras require a specific amount of light for a perfect exposure. The exact same amount of light (every time), regardless of the lighting available.

In AUTO mode:

In low light situations, after the camera selects its brightest lens opening (f2.8 in your case) and selects its highest ISO setting (400 in your case); to gather even more light the camera must reduce shutter speed.

In many cases the shutter speed can be as long as several seconds. That would require that the camera be on a tripod and none of the subjects can move for several seconds. But you will have a perfectly exposed photo.

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