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Posted on 01/06/2011 8:36:09 PM PST by finish9
I am a parent of a 6th grader who wants to take photographs of kids playing indoor basketball and volleyball. I am looking for a camera which will take indoor shots with good white balance and freeze action for these sports. I do not want to go to a DSLR with humongous lens. I do not need professional quality, but also don't want blurry snapshots. I haven't found any point and shoot cameras which will do this; can anyone recommend something perhaps between that and a DSLR? I think that the shutter speed needs to be about 1/300th; what would I require for lens aperture? Any recommendations or help would be appreciated.
Anything wrong with the D7000?
Sue,
The D90 has the same sensor as the D300 and has pretty good higher ISO capabilities.
If you expose the picture correctly and use some noise reduction software, your should be able to shoot at ISO 1600 and get good shots. If you even get a picture that you really like but has more noise than you would like, covert it to B&W and notice how the noise adds a nice grain look to you pictures and makes then very usable.
When shooting on a tripod you can bring down the ISO and let the camera expose for you with a longer shutter speed. Might want to use a timer so that you don’t bump/move the camera when pushing on the shutter.
Loose sharpness when using a zoom? Well....yes and No. As a general rule Prime Lenses will give you better results. Even inexpensive (Kit Lenses) have a sweet spot and can still take great pictures.
Much more to talk about......
If you want to sharpen your shots, first stop using auto mode. Try appeture mode and start with a setting of around f11.
For the zooms, the best thing for sharpening your shots, without a tripod, is to get a lens with VR II.
Get a big one.
You’re welcome.
>I am a Professional Photographer and what you are asking for is impossible with the restrictions that you are imposing on yourself.<
Amen to that! Not to mention it’s not the DSLR that’s the most important consideration in indoor sports photography, it’s the lenses.
Zooms are getting good enough now that you will not notice a difference, that is assuming it is a narrow range zoom. No more than 3 to 1 Zoom range and a name brand maker will result in images for all practical purposes that will equal single focal length lenses.
The 18-200 or 28-300 are very handy but they are invariably slow (small maximum aperture) and image quality is definitely not up to par. I would not recommend them at all for your purposes.
Someone mentioned the 85mm f1.8 and with cameras which use a smaller sensor which effectively gives you a 1.5x or 1.6x multiplier effect it would be about perfect.
Do not try to use any lens with less than an f2.8 aperture.
I feel this suits my needs pretty well, but sometimes I wish I could capture something and just don’t have the know how or equipment. I’ll have to look up the new generation and maybe give this one to my son.
Very nice—I like it!
It's a fantastic camera. It's probably a bit sophisticated for people coming directly from a point & shoot camera. The d3000 or d5000 is more than enough camera for many folks.
I love my d7000. I had a heck of a time finding one, but finally lucked into one this past weekend. Here is a shot I took with it:
But the price of entry is pretty high.
My wife and I do a good bit of wildlife photography. We just went to Costa Rica and got shots of birds that the folks with the DSLR couldn't even get the camera ready.
As far as response time the newer P&S have great burst modes. You can snap off 2-10 shots in a second. That will help you get the shot better than trying to time it.
Her late \st camera is an Olympus with a 35X zoom lens. But her previous camera is a Lumix. I think it is a little better camera. So I would seriously look at this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMC-FZ40-Digital-Stabilized-3-0-Inch/dp/B003WJR694/ref=pd_cp_p_1
At $300 it is less than the flash for some of the cameras listed above. If you try it and don't like it (for indoor sports) you will still find it a great all around camera and then you can look at plunking down the price of a decent motor scooter for one of the DSLRs they are talking about.
It is landing on my century plant that just flowered and now is a mess in the backyard..
Here is a shot taken with our older lumix (18X zoom).
http://northcountyoutlook.com/news/article.exm/2008-10-09_osprey_nesting_sites_rescued
Dang I can’t figure out how to post the picture. but it is the top one in the article. Taken from a moving boat.
Problem is, finish9's kids want to shoot sports, so you can't use slow shutter speeds. What's worse, they're talking about indoor sports. And even though they're indoor, they'll still need something on the order of 100 mm for most shots (35mm film equivalent focal length).
No substitute for big aperture and sensitive (high ISO) sensor, unfortunately. Even image stabilization and a tripod will be of marginal use. The only other thing that could help, as another poster has said, is a good flash, at least for subjects closer than about 40 feet.
Any way you cut it, it sounds like $$$ to me.
I know......But another poster on here asked a question and i was answering that.
Sony
My late Father shot a lot of sports for newspapers back in the 1940s and ‘50s. He always used a 4X5 Speed Graphic.
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