...is for all practical purposes an SLR. What you see on the screen is exactly what the picture is going to look like.
Posted on 05/19/2011 1:01:38 PM PDT by R. Scott
I'm looking for a digital camera with no delay between shutter click and capture. Most have a 1-2 second delay. My grand daughter is into acrobatics and my daughter wants to take good pictures. Any help is welcome.
I would suggest getting a decent Canon off Craigslist for $50 - $100, and install CHDK (Canon Hackers Development Kit) on it.
It will give you all the features of a high-end Canon, including shutter without the price.
I use it on a $25 A530 for time-lapse. It works great.
(PS - Canon picture quality is as good as it gets.)
Exactly. For action, I wouldn’t go any lower that a Nikon D90, or a Canon EOS 50D.
Don’t rely on me. (I’d recommend a Sony DSLR, which is really a Minolta.) I rely on published lab tests for recommendations, never on the guy on the next bar stool.
I agree but it depends on how sophisticated a photographer she is and how willing she is to expand into fast lenses (f-2.8 or better), etc.
For the casual photographer who is trying to get by with a “point and shoot” fixed-focus type camera, these lower end DSLR models are such a leap forward as to be amazing.
I am able to do quite a bit with my D50, though I have not plunked down the $1800 to $2000 to get a good f-2.8 200mm zoom lense necessary for shooting good action shots for evening sports events or indoors.
Check your camera to see if it has a burst mode where it will take several photographs in rapid succession.
If these events are all indoors, she’s going to have be concerned with more than just getting a fast enough camera. She needs professional advice getting a fast camera shutter, a fast lens, a fast flash system, and she also needs to do some testing to look at the trade-off between a fast ISO setting and resolution, plus the trade-off between a fast lens and depth of field.
Good cameras but I’m sold on Sony. I can use all the great Minolta lenses back to 1985.
One tip for point and shoot cameras. Most of that lag you are seeing is probably the camera checking and setting focus and aperture. You can preset that by half depressing and holding the button. Then when your daughter is midair, complete the button press. Even a slow digital camera will complete the shot almost instantly.
I have the D90. Using a fast lens in bright sunlight, it is still not fast enough for action photos. Try photographing hummingbirds and you’ll see what I mean. Those birds can hear you press the shutter and are gone before the shutter even opens. I have hundreds of pictures of hummingbird butts.
Define little. The hands on difference between a low end DSLR that struggles to do 3 shots a second and a midgrade DSLR that can do 6 is amazing. A point and shoot? It's all marketing. In the real world you might as well measure it in shots per minute once you toss out the poorly metered or focused shots.
And these are consumer grade cameras. If your shots really matter, ie you expect more shots to be usable than not, nothing shy of a $2500 DSLR is going to cut it. If you're actually getting paid for it and you REALLY have to depend on the camera to deliver, $5k and up. Action photography is more challenging than non-photographers can imagine, and folks get in over their heads easily with cheap equipment and just give up. It's the number 1 hobby killer for photography.
I have a Sony 12+ mega-pixel DSLR that does a 7 second burst of pictures with almost no delay. Go on dealnews.com every day and scroll down to the camera section. You’ll find a lot of great deals there.
When I need to take action shots, I use the video on the camera, then use Picasa to view it. There is a “take snapshot” button you can use to grab pics from the video. I mostly use video now rather than try to get the timing and focus right quickly. With video, it is already focused.
I will agree that a proper DSLR is the answer, but the issue of how to properly use the shutter button on any digital camera is still something to master.
Getting a more sophisticated camera is only the answer if the cost, complexity and the user willingness to learn is factored in.
I have some variety of point and shoot digitals, but when I am serious I drag out my Nikon D90 and one of the its lens suited to the task. A Nikon D3100 with the kit zoom lens will set them back about $600.00 and a D5100 about $900.
But there are people that just find the tool too complex and if they learn the proper tricks to best use the tool that they are already comfortable with that often solves the problem.
...is for all practical purposes an SLR. What you see on the screen is exactly what the picture is going to look like.
It’s rough shooting action at night or indoors. I have a good f-1.8 prime but being a prime, it’s not great for action.
I had the opportunity to use a real action camera recently, the Nikon D3s. Even the difference between the s model (made for action) and my D3 is amazing. I’m really of the opinion that indoor action is at minimum pushing thousand dollar mark.
Listen to what they're saying about indoor shots. You need a very fast lens to stop action. I have a lens with f2.8 and can use it indoors with no flash, available lighting, kids playing, older people dancing. it's a 24-70 2.8L with no IS. You can always use the popup flash but then there are other problems. I have one that slides in the flash shoe on top; to use those you have to plan ahead, can't just grab a shot. Even better is a bracket that elevates your flash. You will see professionals using them at weddings, and they use a lot more expensive cameras called full frame, not for beginners.
It took me awhile to learn all this, and I know you won't know what a lot of this "camera talk" means. I won a prize on the pelican shot.
“Even a slow digital camera will complete the shot almost instantly.”
No. There are huge differences among cameras. You can turn off the autofocus and the autoexposure and the camera shutter lag will still be the limiting factor. Action photographers require cameras designed with exceptionally fast circuitry. This is why sports photographers don’t take pictures with a cheap point-and-shoot camera. You have to have the right tool for the job.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_lag
You’re probably right. I have a D3, and I don’t consider it to be a true action camera. I’ve used (but not owned) a couple of really good mission specific action oriented cameras, and if you’re shooting hummingbirds you’re just about guaranteed to need one.
Btw, maybe you should just go avant guarde and rent some gallery space for a one man show of hummingbird butts. You might get rich over night.
It is for no purposes a DSLR or comparable in any way.
I agree that artificial shutter sounds are killers to bird shots.
Fast focus can help and a Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR ($520) has faster focus for action shots and will be a telephoto equivelant to a 450mm on a 35 mm camera. Many women will find a long telephoto on a 35mm all too heavy and cumbersome if they didn’t grow up shooting a 35mm — I know my wife (super intelligent — but little time or patience for electronics) doesn’t care for my Nikon even though she used an old Canon back in the film days.
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