High Quality Digital Camera (Questions from a plum)

[Az]

Hi guys. Hope you can help me here.......

I know very little about digital camera's in terms of quality. I know more megapixels are good, as are big lens and SLR's.

I want to take very high quality pictures of racing cars but on a digital camera rather than the film I'm currently using.

I have a fair bit of money to spend, possibly up to £1000.

Can someone tell me what the kind of things I should be looking for or guide me to somewhere with basic/up to date info on digi camera's.

I want something with plenty of zoom, yet can maintain super crisp picture without going pixellated like my camcorder.

Reccomendations?

[redshoes]

Does that £1000 include the lens or just the DSLR body? What are you doing with the pictures - web use, normal sized prints, magazine publishing?

[Az]

They would be for web use, and to put onto CD's in high quality.

Well ideally £1000 for everything, including the lens.

[Snapperjack]

Are you currently taking very high quality pictures of cars with your film camera? What camera equipment do you currently use? That may help with the replies. Having even the best camera does not guarantee someone being able to take high quality pictures of cars.

There have been quite a few discussions re digital cameras in this forum. Have a look through these. They will give you a few clues.

Link 1

Link 2

You could also check out www.dpreview.com

Please remember that there are other things to consider, for example photo editing software, storage space for all those files, flash cards etc. Will these be on top of your £1000?

[gi_gav]

To get it all under a grand, you'd do well to look at the high-end non-SLRs - things like the Sony F828 (fast 28-200mm lens so quite a good range, and about £750) and the Nikon C5700.

Nikon have just brought out the replacement (C8700, 8 million pixel, as opposed to 5M for the 5700), so it might be due for another price drop. Is below £600 already.

A couple of faster-speed memory cards for any of these will set you back about £100 each, for 512MB cards.

[Az]

So why is SLR so much better then? I've been told to get SLR for motorsport pictures......

Thanks for the links by the way, very helpful, but I need basic information so that when I go into the shop I know what i'm looking for

[KC]

Megapixel size will dictate the size of print that you can produce without size interpolation. My 2.1mp Olympus can make images just larger than 8x10 in SHQ (high quality) mode. Since even most decent digitals are all 3.0 and above you should have not problem making large scale prints. For action photography you will be happy with, you need things that many point and shoot cameras will not accomodate. Even some higher end pro/consumer cameras do not offer SLR settings as a standard.

You'll need as fast a lens as you can get. To capture fast moving vehicles you'll need at least an f4.0 lens aperture or faster. An f2.0 will be twice as good at gathering light and allowing you to decrease the time your shutter is open.

You will also need a long lens. Do not get caught up in digital zoom. The digital zoom on a camera is merely a method of cropping that leaves you with a low resolution image. Its always better to use Photoshop or equivalent to do these chores than to rely on your cameras ability to interpolate an image. Your goal is to get as much optical zoom as you can. This does not compromise image quality as the zoom is the same as an SLR. The camera companies are redefining the nomenclature for digital cameras (in an effort to camouflage their relatively short zoom lengths I think) by stating them in time of zoom instead of millimeters of focal length. You'll see 3x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom on many cameras. The camera may only have an effective focal length of 18mm. This gives from 18mm to 54mm optical zoom. That fine for a P&S camera but very limited for taking pictures of objects far away. I would recommend a camera with a zoom capability of 35mm to 300mm. This allows you to shoot at events where even photographers are kept far back and still get decent detail. My Olympus is 38-380mm optical zoom. It works great out to maybe 50 yards and I use a 1.7x optical teleconverter to longer ranges.

Make sure you have adequate image storage capacity. The more megapixels you have the more storage you'll need. I have 6 128MB Smartmedia cards for my camera. They will hold 90 2.1mp SHQ jpegs each (image size 1600 x 1200). I have shot all of them twice on one day of a race meet. Thats over 1000 images. I take a laptop along to empty the cards as I go. That may seem like overkill, but after you start culling out the marginal shots and the missed shots you can end up with only 40% left (depending on how good you are and how good your shooting position was). I shoot a lot of images for the Drag Boat Review at the boat races I attend. Offering the editor only a 100 images will result in maybe one image making the paper so I offer as many as I can. This requires as much storage as possible to avoid watching the races while they go on and while I download images. I shot 8 memory cards worth in one 1-1/2 hour USAC sprint car race I attended. Its free to shoot and you don't have to develop the dodgy ones. This also gives you the luxury to experiment and try out different settings and compositions. The more you shoot, the better you'll get if you can sort out why an image went wrong.

You'll also need to try the camera at the store for shutter lag. Many digitals have a distinct delay between when you pressed the button and when it exposed the CCD. This is much worse on cheaper cameras. It can get very frustrating as you constantly miss sudden action or only capture the back half of a race car. Usually the more expensive the camera the less shutter lag it has.

[rdjones]

I have a Fuji S602, it's a really good camara and it does everything I want it to do. I have had some really good results. The S602 has now been replaced by the S7000, which is again is a good camara a guy I work with uses one for motorsport photography too and he is happy with it. You can pick up a S602 for about £350 and S7000 are about £500.

[Az]

Really great stuff guys, thanks very much for taking the time to type that all out

I have printed your post KC, and will take it in fully while browsing other sites, looking for the camera I want.

Thanks again!

Anyone got links to reccomended camera's where I could buy them (in the UK)?

[Tim Falce]

Try here

[stefan]

SLR's have no shutter lag - most point and shoots (even the expensive ones) do. The SLR's also focus faster.
SLR's have the option of much bigger telephoto lenses - although you can get 2x magnifying lenses for pointandshoots the quality isn't as good.

That said, you can get good photos with a point-and-shoot but you have to learn to cope with/get around the above problems. You'll probably miss a few good shots in the process.

Currently the Canon 300D and new Nikon might just fall within your budget. With current exchange rates it might be worth looking to the US (Bhphoto.com). I got mine from there and saved a lot - even after duties and taxes. It does mean I'd have to send it to America if it needed repairing but I've never had to send any of my 4 cameras back yet.

[Az]

Thanks for your help!

I understand SLR and why it has advantages now. I browsed through the back of a Digital Photography magazine yesterday and the cheapest SLR was £899 for a Canon (rated at 91% in the mag), which seemed to be quite good, so I think I can get something for within my price range.

I'm going to go to a specialist shop and talk with someone face-to-face. I will almost certainly buy one at the start of next month once i've been paid.

Thanks again!

[redshoes]

Remember that if you are buying a DSLR the price will be for the body only. Add anything from a few hundred to a few thousand extra for a lens.

[G_Ilott]

You know, you could get a secondhand Canon D30 for about £450 then spend the rest of your grand on a used Sigma 100-300 f/4 plus a couple of CompactFlash cards and maybe a box of CDs (assuming you have a computer).

The D30 isn't the greatest motorsport camera out there and it's getting on a bit, but it does the job (according to Jeff at www.autoimages.co.uk) and you're not going to get much more for your money without seriously weakening either side of the equation. Always spend more on your lenses - they make or break a picture, no matter how expensive or technologically advanced your camera is.

You could get the Canon 300D @ £799 but it won't leave you change to get a lens worthy of its megapixels.

[Hugewally]

UKF1, did you ever buy yet? With the EOS-1D MkII coming out soon, I'm sure you'll be able to find some early version 1D's for a decent price...

martin

[Az]

Originally posted by Hugewally
UKF1, did you ever buy yet? With the EOS-1D MkII coming out soon, I'm sure you'll be able to find some early version 1D's for a decent price...

martin

Sadly I have not yet

I've bookmarked this thread for reference though, and I will definately be buying a high quality camera and lens soon.

Other things such as getting a new (and faster) car have taken priority (and all of my money lol) at the moment. However once I do get a good camera expect to see loads of photo's from loads of events in high resolution

Cheers

[Snapperjack]

Dont forget a good zoom lens.

Should be able to get the driver's fillings with one of these! lol

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...&category=4687

[Maisie]

Cor! Do the resident experts rate that lens at all?

[gi_gav]

That lens is hilarious!!

It does beg the question, why?

what what you ever shoot at 1300mm that you could get away with a shutter speed as slow as you're likely to get at f.16...?

all for £149 too!

[redshoes]

moon buggy racing, on the moon ?

[911gt1]

Originally posted by redshoes
Does that £1000 include the lens or just the DSLR body? What are you doing with the pictures - web use, normal sized prints, magazine publishing?

Don't know what prices are like in the UK, but 1000 pounds converted to US dollars will get you a Canon Digital Rebel, a 28-300 zoom lens, a 1 gig memory card, and probably some cash left over (in the US).

[Rich_F]

That lens is a joke. Bearing in mind the focal-length multiplier on digital cameras you are looking at a 1040 - 2080 mm lens