OT Any photographers out there?

That's funny! :)

The one other piece of advice I'd suggest is DON'T walk into Circuit City and/or Best Buy and listen to those guys...

They are almost always just kids starting out and don't really know anything - but they are getting paid to act like they do!

Ask anyone with experience and/or read up on the websites that were mentioned... Just like with tractors - experience is the best teacher!

HH

Editing software will cover a multitude of camera sins but once again, there is a lot to using it beyond what I have found in print. I use Photoshop 5.5 and 9.0.

After you get your stuff, get to know your lighting. Each gym and each type of lighting will have a different temperature. The easiest way to deal with this I"ve found is to shoot in camera raw. You can then correct temperature in your editing program. Its a memory hog though. I get 56 images on a 1 GB card in raw and 256 in high resolution JPG. Personally, I shoot sports with the f stop set to where I want it for the depth of field and the shutter on auto. Sometimes you get some dark images but you can boost exposure in your editing. Hard set your film speed at no more than ISO 200 though, otherwise film grain and noise can be a real problem. I get a lot of problems with that in concert footage. Once again, your editing software can help you out. Instead of correcting grain duplicate a layer, gaussian blur 1-2 MP in the top layer, and then reduce opacity. A lot of grain just melts away.

My email is open if you have questions. I"ve linked one of my online pages here.

• Ironheart Images

However, for serious photos, we have a Minolta 35mm with a zoom lens. It cost about $900 in the 1980's, but you can't beat it for action shots. I've been to NASCAR races, stood near the inside edge of the track, and stopped cars going 180-200 mph like they were standing still on the track.

Guess what you need to do is decide what you want a camera to do, and spec the camera accordingly.

I own “prosumer” level superzoom cameras by Canon, Olympus and Sony (my current “primary” camera is an older model Sony H1). I’ve been pleased with every one. Presuming you are on a limited budget I’d recommend something along this line.

Be looking for the following features:

- 10x (minimum) OPTICAL zoom. Pay no attention to claims about digital zoom range – it’s only marketing fluff.

- Optical image stabilization. This is absolutely required for hand-held sports photography. And it's a godsend for low light photography.

- User adjustable ISO settings. It’s same as using faster ISO film in a film camera. However keep in mind faster ISO’s give grainier photos. My experience is ISO 400 on a digital camera is marginal – faster ISO’s are so grainy as to be pretty much useless.

- User adjustable white balance. Let’s you “tune” the image color balance to compensate for the the myriad wierd hues of indoor lighting so prevalent in gymnasiums, etc.

- Shortest possible shutter lag time (the time delay between when you push shutter release and the exposure is actually taken). Under poor lighting some digital cameras require upwards of 1 second from the time the button is pushed and when the shot is actually taken. - User selectable continuous autofocus. This significantly reduces the shutter lag above. However continuous autofocus can chew through batteries at an alarming rate.

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Like Howard suggests poke around in Steves Digicams. You will find more good info (including objective camera tests) than you can ever possibly need.

Also If you can, borrow a camera and try it out for yourself under your "real world" conditions. You'll know very quickly whether it's gonna do the job for you!

• Steve's Digicams

Ken Rockwell (the other site I mentioned below), recommends it over the D80 for most people, but I wanted the 1/4000 shutter speed for fast action.

I've taken pics at the NASCAR races which were very sharp, so it really freezes the action!

Howard

I had a Nikon Coolpix 3100 before that and it was not all that great a camera. My sister has a Canon digital Rebel and it is a great "bang for the buck" camera.

The tradeoff in action photos is a faster shutter speed captures sharper action, but also lets less light in during that time, so depending on the lighting, your lens, camera, etc, quality may go down. Be sure and compare shutter speed settings, etc, between models you are looking at.

If you are looking for a new camera - one main decision is whether to go with a detachable lens SLR type camera. They give you a lot more flexibility in adding items later, but are more expensive.

Google "steves digicams" to read up more on photography - it's a great site with a tremendous amount of info on it.

Howard

Cheers

Mitch

Yes, I looked at some other models fairly hard. The university shutterbug here has several. He had both a Canon and the D70 Nikon - said it was a little like Ford or Chevy - you are down to the short strokes in differences by then.

I don't think the Canon 40 was out when I bought mine in the summer. I noticed that Canon has a super fast 1/8000 shutter speed! That would be cool!

The D80 is a little older by now, but it takes stunning photos.

I got the 18-200 VR lens - here is a review of it by Ken Rockwell (who also has a ton of info on his site - if you can take the strong opinions):

Link

It's a pretty high-dollar lens - but it will take you from closeup insect photos to far off zooms with the flick of the wrist. No switching of lenses that potentially let dirt into the camera body.

Email me at howardh at opsu.edu and I'll send you some full resolution pics that show off the real power of the lens. It's amazing. I'd post them on a photo website, but I don't know of one that will come close to allowing the full resolution that this will capture... Photobucket, for example, limits you to 1024x768.

Even with my PC monitor set to 1920x1200, a 1:1 viewing shows less than half the picture.

Howard