dmccarty
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2008
- Messages
- 1,233
Jen,
If you can't tell yet, people who like to play with expensive camera's are a bit opinionated about their equipment.
Forgetting brand issues for a moment. While one has to buy the camera body what is must important equipment wise is the LENS on the body.
I don't buy a lense unless is a f2.8 or faster. But that costs money but its worth it. If you are going to be taking pictures in low light you need a fast lense to get good photos. To get a fast shutter speed in low light you have to use a fast film or in a DSLR a fast/high ISO. But the faster the film/ISO the "worse" the picture. (Worse and Good are up to interpretation)
However some events are just so poorly let and the action so fast the photos are not possible or just not good.
Years ago I was taking photos of gymnastic events at NCSU. Reynolds Colosium had horrible lighting and getting a sharp photo required a wide open f2.8 lens and shooting an 800 film that was shot at 1600. Very grainy photos and not worth a darn. The only photos that really worked where black and white since the grain in the photos was ok. You don't use a flash at this level of competition. And I was walking around the floor matt taking photos so I had good access. Fun to watch but the lighting was bad bad bad.
My daughter is playing basketball in a fairly well let gym. I took the camera to see if I could get a photo. No way due to the light. I might be able to use a flash but I doubt it.
My long winded point is that even with the best equipment you still may not get the shot due to light issues. If the even is outdoors during the day you should do fine but at night or indoors things can get iffy.
Since you set a budget buy the best and fastest lense you can and then fit the body to the lense. The bad/good thing about DSLRs is that they are constantly changing. I did buy a DSLR last year since it seems like the camera's have reached a certain maturity level. I bought a D200 and a few months ago a D300 came out. But nothing is on the new camera that would make me need the D300. BUT there will be a newer and better body down the line. So buy the lense and in a few years you might upgrade to a better body. Having two bodies is good. Prior to the D200 I would have two bodies with different lenses for different situations. It really helps to have a camera ready to do with the lense you need RIGHT NOW.
So focus on the lense. Then the body.
My primary lense used to take snapshots of the kids is a 35-70 F2.8. Due to the size of the Nikon sensor this is really a 52-105 lense. Either way its an excellent lense for general picture taking. You are not going to get a close up of an bird 100 feet away but for taking snapshots of people and places its hard to beat. You might want a lense in the 200 range to take shots from the stands. Zooms are nice but heavy and expensive. The 35-70 is the only zoom I own. The rest are all prime lenses. But a zoom will allow you to frame the picture and if you are stuck in the stands moving around really is not an option. So a zoom in the 200mm range is your best bet. But you might need a long lense but it depends on how far the stands are from the action.
For my daughters soccer games I use the 35-70 and a 180 since I can move around and I'm not stuck sitting in the stands.
So which camera system?
I own Nikon for one reason. They support their customers.
I started with Cannon equipment with a T70 back in the 80s. Great equipment but it was manual focus. When autofocus came out Cannon changed the lense mounts and their newer cameras would not use my lenses. Nikon for the most part still supports their old manual focus lenses. If I had bought Nikon back in the 80s I would still be using those lenses today. Camera bodies come and go but great glass stays.
My dad bought a Cannon body in the 90s. It had a known defect that caused the camera to burn through batteries. I did not know he was having this problem and by the time I found out about it Cannon would no longer fix the camera for free.
So no more Cannon equipment for me.
Back to my main theme about the camera body being second and lense first. My F100 which is an EXCELLENT film camera, cost about $1,200 and the best I can tell is that it is now worth $400. Maybe. The 35-70 lense I paid about $650 and new its going for $450-500. The 180mm lense does not appear to have moved in price at all.
Lense are not loosing value as fast as the bodies. I think the 35-70 lost some value since there VR and AF-S lenses in the focal range that are "better" thus the price drop.
Think lense and then the body.
If you can't tell yet, people who like to play with expensive camera's are a bit opinionated about their equipment.
Forgetting brand issues for a moment. While one has to buy the camera body what is must important equipment wise is the LENS on the body.
I don't buy a lense unless is a f2.8 or faster. But that costs money but its worth it. If you are going to be taking pictures in low light you need a fast lense to get good photos. To get a fast shutter speed in low light you have to use a fast film or in a DSLR a fast/high ISO. But the faster the film/ISO the "worse" the picture. (Worse and Good are up to interpretation)
However some events are just so poorly let and the action so fast the photos are not possible or just not good.
Years ago I was taking photos of gymnastic events at NCSU. Reynolds Colosium had horrible lighting and getting a sharp photo required a wide open f2.8 lens and shooting an 800 film that was shot at 1600. Very grainy photos and not worth a darn. The only photos that really worked where black and white since the grain in the photos was ok. You don't use a flash at this level of competition. And I was walking around the floor matt taking photos so I had good access. Fun to watch but the lighting was bad bad bad.
My daughter is playing basketball in a fairly well let gym. I took the camera to see if I could get a photo. No way due to the light. I might be able to use a flash but I doubt it.
My long winded point is that even with the best equipment you still may not get the shot due to light issues. If the even is outdoors during the day you should do fine but at night or indoors things can get iffy.
Since you set a budget buy the best and fastest lense you can and then fit the body to the lense. The bad/good thing about DSLRs is that they are constantly changing. I did buy a DSLR last year since it seems like the camera's have reached a certain maturity level. I bought a D200 and a few months ago a D300 came out. But nothing is on the new camera that would make me need the D300. BUT there will be a newer and better body down the line. So buy the lense and in a few years you might upgrade to a better body. Having two bodies is good. Prior to the D200 I would have two bodies with different lenses for different situations. It really helps to have a camera ready to do with the lense you need RIGHT NOW.
So focus on the lense. Then the body.
My primary lense used to take snapshots of the kids is a 35-70 F2.8. Due to the size of the Nikon sensor this is really a 52-105 lense. Either way its an excellent lense for general picture taking. You are not going to get a close up of an bird 100 feet away but for taking snapshots of people and places its hard to beat. You might want a lense in the 200 range to take shots from the stands. Zooms are nice but heavy and expensive. The 35-70 is the only zoom I own. The rest are all prime lenses. But a zoom will allow you to frame the picture and if you are stuck in the stands moving around really is not an option. So a zoom in the 200mm range is your best bet. But you might need a long lense but it depends on how far the stands are from the action.
For my daughters soccer games I use the 35-70 and a 180 since I can move around and I'm not stuck sitting in the stands.
So which camera system?
I own Nikon for one reason. They support their customers.
I started with Cannon equipment with a T70 back in the 80s. Great equipment but it was manual focus. When autofocus came out Cannon changed the lense mounts and their newer cameras would not use my lenses. Nikon for the most part still supports their old manual focus lenses. If I had bought Nikon back in the 80s I would still be using those lenses today. Camera bodies come and go but great glass stays.
My dad bought a Cannon body in the 90s. It had a known defect that caused the camera to burn through batteries. I did not know he was having this problem and by the time I found out about it Cannon would no longer fix the camera for free.
So no more Cannon equipment for me.
Back to my main theme about the camera body being second and lense first. My F100 which is an EXCELLENT film camera, cost about $1,200 and the best I can tell is that it is now worth $400. Maybe. The 35-70 lense I paid about $650 and new its going for $450-500. The 180mm lense does not appear to have moved in price at all.
Lense are not loosing value as fast as the bodies. I think the 35-70 lost some value since there VR and AF-S lenses in the focal range that are "better" thus the price drop.
Think lense and then the body.
) but I just can't get behind this decision, as it hurts the consumer in favor of saving a buck or two. Apparently it hasn't affected sales that much, but I suspect that a big percentage of Nikon entry-level DSLRs are sold by places like Sears, 
To spend a bit more to get a better camera to use those lenses is worth the dollar. 
