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 second the CHDK Idea, but you have to get a Cannon camera that is at least Digic II and is supported (they have a list of supported cameras and working options for each). The 520 is decent enough, but all of the DSLRs are much better. To each their own I guess, but at least CHDK and a cheap camera won’t break the bank. I’ve gotten plenty of good action shots on a lesser model Cannon point and shoot camera (mostly by anticipating, timing and some luck) - I’ve also missed a lot of them as well.
List for the low end cameras. Most of these are in the 300 to 500 msec range. That’s pretty slow. Lots of differences even for a given brand. You have to shop by model.
http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-lag-comparisons.cfm
You won the prize for the wrong photo. The bird is nice, but the dancers is a much better shot. I’m digging the nice bokeh. It really makes your subjects stand out.
Another vote for a non-cheap DSLR. Nikon DX40 serves me well, no noticeable lag. Point-and-shoot pocket camera won’t cut it.
So you can tell the difference between a photo shot with a DSLR and point-and-shoot?
Other than be reading the metadata, I mean?
I looked long and hard at them all, took me a year and a half to take the plunge. I almost went with Minolta, and was impressed with Sony, but one model that year had serious problems.
In the end, I was torn between Canon and Nikon, and went Canon. I have a pro friend who used a Fuji dslr which Nikon lenses will fit on. Jaw dropping shots. Fuji's are known for great color and skin tones.
They all have their strengths and weaknesses. The pros I've watched shoot with Canon full frame.
The Canon Rebel EOS line. I have one. That’s why the ads show them shooting a tennis player in action. In sports mode, if you hold the shutter button it takes bursts of snaps at three per second. The first one is almost immediate. Be careful: you have to buy memory separately. For about $30 bucks I got a memory card that can hold about 2000 medium resolution (2MByte) exposures.
I think (but I am not sure) that you really do need an SLR to get a fast camera, otherwise it has to recover from the charge left in the sensor array from the display image.
BTW, the Cannon EOS line (and I got the bottom of the line) has really good color depth, wonderful lenses and all round good optics and performance. I took pictures of jack-o-lanterns on Halloween and you could see more background detail in pictures than with the naked eye. It works fine in auto mode, but the advanced modes allow to do a lot more by trading exposure time for depth of field, that sort of thing. It also allows access to the raw pixels if you want to do things like integrating (piling up) successive exposures or fancy signal processing. (Otherwise it saves the pictures as JPEGS which are highly compressed.)
A really fine instrument.
As a father of 3 competitive gymnasts I have had the same problems. What I found was the Sony Cyber-shot is an excellent camera for this type of photography. I have the DSC-HX1 and for the last two seasons have been getting some fantastic still shots. It also will take HD video which is so good that I’ve been able to pull stills from the video feed. It has a sports setting that allows for ease of use, or you can actually set the exposure, aperture, and shutter speed for the more adept camera user.
The best part is that I can set it for different high speed shot settings. It has a mechanical shutter so there is no delay and I can set it to take as much as 10 shots per second. I’ve found that a 3 shot per second burst is just right for gymnastics though.
Hope this is helpful.
You’ll notice the lag if you step up. Your camera has around 100ms shutter lag. Better than a point and shoot, but it’s there. Mine has about 37ms shutter lag, and you’ll never notice it unless you use a camera that has about half of that, and they exist. I did, and now I kinda hate my camera. Well not really, but it was humbling.
Hope you can chime back in and give us some more specifics as we are now down to bickering about what one factor is the most important when its obvious the we need some direction as to whether a tool change or technique change is the item she should try first.
Many issues make up how action shots are captured. From the comments you can see that electronic generation of the “click sound” is a factor, the camera focusing and setting exposure is an issue that impacts ten fold if the shutter isn’t kept partially depressed and even when it it the digital cameras all take signifigant fractions of a second to actaully open the shutter.
To top all that off, a bright gym for gymnastics is still indoor and at a distance and in a setting where flash won’t reach and will distract so light gathering and ASA setting for exposure needed to “stop action” is a major factor.
Does she want to spend money for better shots or is she looking to first improve what she has? If the later look at all the shutter usage issues and all the related camera setting (like high ASA) for fastest shutter settings her camera will accomplish.
Thanks Coug.
Still hangin’ on here.
Yeah, I jacked up the ISO to 3200 to get that one. Those zoomed up you will see a lot of noise, but Canons are one of the best when it comes to low noise, best not to go over ISO 1600, start to see noise at ISO 800.
I think probably all models may be better with noise by now, but point and shoot cameras were much worse, bad noise at ISO 400 and at lower ISO's in low light. I cut my teeth with a little Olympus 4000Z, and I had to use a lot of exposure compensation to get the best shots. I still use at least -2/3 exposure compensation in bright sun, but better photogs don't shoot that way. In good light I quit bothering with shutter priority mode, still don't have a good handle on full manual like the pros do.
This is one of the best acticles on the internet from I site I find very helpful:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/shutter-lag.htm
Oh absolutely. Put up a raw uncompressed image and I can tell the difference between full frame and APS frame DSLR, and I can tell you if you were shooting with cheap glass or expensive glass.
Since the point and shoot you mentioned shoots in jpg only (unless ELPHS have really changed) then, I could spot the difference on any monitor at any resolution in the blink of any eye. Jpgs stick out like a sore thumb after you’ve worked with uncompressed images for even a small amount of time.
Now in fairness, I will say that if you’re viewing your pictures on a cheap 20” Twisted Nematic monitor (Which is probably 90% of monitors sold) I couldn’t tell the difference between the two SLRS, but I could spot the jpg.
Digital SLR.
Goto ebay and you can get a Canon Rebel Digital SLR in great condition for about 200-300.
Night and day difference from Point and Shoots. Get one and you will never go back.
bump
Not with the Canon Hacker's Development Kit (CHDK).
It has the same processor Canon DSLRs, and with CHDK you can do the same things the more expensive DSLRs can do.
That was my point.
I’ll defer to you on that then. I don’t hack anything, not tablets, not phones, no cameras. I have zero experience to draw from.
Finally a topic on FR that I can speak with a lot of authority!
I am a professional sports photographer. It is all I do. No weddings, no portraits (other than sports photos) and nothing else. I’ve shot everything from little league stuff to National Basketball championships.
Really, this is ALL I do.
Shooting gymnastics is a skill that you will probably not be able to master. Here is why: The lighting, the action, the white balance, and the referees.
Referees/Floor people will not let you near the action. It is their job. It is primarly for the kids safety. Even when I am doing it, they keep us at a pretty fair distance, and I usually get the best seats in the house.
The lighting in most gyms is horrible. Unless she is a Divison I college athlete or world class, she is working out in a horribly lit gym for photos. That light is the problem.
The light is low. That means you need a very high ISO to get reasonable shutter speeds. Anything below 400 or 500th of a second is going to be marginal. You really need to get that shutter up pretty fast to get a good sharp photo. The ISO I am talking about starts at about 3200 and goes up to 5000 easy. You are not going to get good resolution with that kind ISO without a really good camera. In my world the Nikon D700 is a minimum useable camera. It goes for about $2500. The D7000 is actually pretty good and uses a lot of the same technology as a D3s believe it or not. For the weekend sports shooter it is pretty good.
The light color is important. The white balance in a gym goes from puke green to crazy blue. Again, being able to adjust the white balance is critical otherwise you will get lousy shots.
Forget on camera flash. Most gymnastic meets will not allow flash. AND, unless you can get right on top of the apparatus, your flash is not going to be strong enough. I have a carload of equipment that I lug around to light small college gyms. Your on camera flash is just not going to do it.
Final light issue: The low level light will cause your focus to not be able to lock onto the target. THAT is part of the problem you will have between pushing the shutter and getting the click. You can solve this by getting a good “fast” lens, which usually means a 2.8 or lower. I use a 50mm 1.4 for basketball sometimes when the light is especially bad.
One of the things that I always tell people in this digital age: Buy a decent camera body. But spend the big money on the glass. They are going to come out with a new camera next year that will be ten times better than the one you have. The lenses are really not going to change that much. The primary lens I use is a 300mm 2.8, and it is easily 15 years old. That lens has made half a million dollars over that 15 years. No kidding. Its paid for itself over a hundred times.
I see parents and grandparents on the sidelines every season. I try to help them get better shots, but the difference in equipment is so remarkable that it is just crazy. I tell folks I carry a small car with me when I shoot...three bodies and lenses that are just really outrageously expensive. But, you’ve seen my stuff on the web and in magazines. Its a tool like anything else.
So my recommendation is either a low end pro camera from Nikon or Canon. Or the highest level consumer camera from either. Go to KEH.com or BHPhotovideo.com for the best prices and selections for used and new respectively.
Go with either of them because you can expand on them, and use the lenses as you buy better cameras over the years. With Nikon lenses (I dont shoot Canon so I dont know the details of them) get a AF-S lens. It focuses fast enough to keep up with your action. SPEND money on the lens. If you cheap out with one of their packages (50-200 mm zoom) you will be able to take pictures of birds sitting still on a sunny day, but it will be useless in a gym.
If you want more info, or see any of my stuff just freepmail me and I will be happy to send you some links.
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