So if the live view is so useless, as I have found out, why have it?

 

Because it's a great gimmick to get P&S users to switch over to DSLRs.

 

cute pic ... but kinda smudgey around the lips .... work on that focus bro ....

 

It's great for those times where your head can't be where the camera is. Very limited use.

 

So, I took a picture of our fan while it's working, and it looks like the shutter is fast enough to catch the blade.

I am using AF-C in sports, and it looks like the camera figured that the lamp is the focal point and focused and took the picture.

If I just focus on the whirling blades, the camera won't even attempt to focus or fire.

Is there a way to take a perfect still with no blurriness of the blades while it's spinning, or am I asking too much of the lens I got? Or is it operator error? And if operator error, what should I be doing instead?

 

as a photo amateur, you need to speed up the shutter speed. With that said, you will need to let more light in, so open up the aperature.

/craigger's knowledge

 

Thanks man, I did it.

200th and F5 with flash

 

The D90 should let the shutter open and close in 1/4000th of a sec so speed is definitely not a problem. If you set the aperture wide open on your 35mm to 1.8 and opened every window in the room with all the lights on, you might be able to freeze the motion without using flash.

I'm guessing you still have it on auto at this point? Try switching over to shutter priority [S] and then you can control your shutter speed and the camera will handle the rest. That might help with freezing action from Baby Scuderia.

 

This one is 200th and F8.

And no, I didn't turn off the fan.

 

I set it to M and changed shutter to 200th with flash and aperature to F8 in the last picture. For some reason even with all the windows open I couldn't get enough light. But 200th doesn't seem to be the problem since this last picture was fine.