Quick and dirty D80 rocket shooting tutorial:

I don't use the sport setting. It seldom sets the shutter anywhere close enough to keep from blurring rockets, but I'm sure it does a fine job shooting soccer kids near noon on a sunny day. I normally shoot rockets at about 1/2000 shutter speed. I could have slowed the shutter down for the slow moving Saturn, but I didn't want to take any chance on blurring since it was it's first flight.

To set the shutter speed and still use the auto metering, set it to the "S" for shutter priority and set your shutter speed with the thumb wheel on the right. Go into the menu and set the ISO to auto. That way if the aperture is wide open and it still isn't getting enough light, it will automatically jack up the ISO. Images will be more grainy with higher ISO, but not too dark. Otherwise you'd have to use a slower shutter speed to get enough light. It would be better to shoot 100% manual on shutter, aperture and ISO, but that takes some effort.

I'm guessing you have an 18-135 f/3.5-5.6 lens. When you zoom in you won't be getting as much light, so be sure to shoot on a bright sunny day where the auto ISO doesn't have to kick really high to get the correct exposure. With it zoomed all the way in, you will have some darkening in the corners of your images, but you can crop that out.

For any autofocus camera to actually shoot at the frame rate advertised on a moving target, you have to turn off the autofocus. It's the little switch on the left side of the camera body near the lens mount on the Nikons. You can focus with the focus ring on the lens, or you can use the autofocus to do it for you and then turn the feature off, being sure not to bump the lens afterwards. If you don't use the ring, your shots at altitude will be blurry, but the liftoff shots should be in focus. I seldom if ever hold the button down long enough to fill the buffer, but if you like holding the button down for extended periods, you'd need a fast SD card in order to keep the frame rate fast.

I like to back away a bit and use the zoom instead of staying close and using a wider angle for most rockets. It is easier to keep the rocket in the frame that way because you don't have to move the camera as fast. It will also help with blurring when shooting at borderline shutter speeds. If it's going to be a slow rocket like the Saturn, I stay close enough and/or zoomed in enough to fill most of the frame. If it's a faster rocket, I generally only fill half the frame or a little less with the rocket at the bottom, giving me a little leeway to keep it in frame if it moves faster than me.

After you shoot some and download them, have a look at the overall exposure. If every picture seems too bright or too dark, you can adjust it for a little more or less with the +/- setting and it will remember it next time you switch over to shutter priority "S". Also, you might want to fool with the metering system and see which exposure metering works best for you. If you were doing this 100% manual, you could just spot meter a gray card and be done with it.

__________________
I love sanding.