Express Action Sports

My main area of intrest is taking action shots and sports photos. Can anyone help or give me some suggestions to what I should be looking at? I’m planning to buy, but I don’t have an unlimited amount of funds, if you know what I mean. As a matter of fact, I’m kind of strapped. Any suggestions on the best deal with greatest performance?

The main things you want to look for in cameras for sports photography are;
Frames per second – lower end Nikons and Canons have around 2-5 FPS. It all depends on what you need for the speed.
Lens selection – You may be strapped for cash now, but what about a year from now? You want to get a camera that has a huge selection of compatible lenses so next year you can get that 600mm lens if you want.
Zoom or telephoto lens – These are nessecary in sports photography! Personally, I’d go for the zoom as it’s more versital.
A steady tripod – stay away from those aluminum pieces of junk. You will need something that isn’t going to break anytime soon. The more you zoom with a camera, the more chance for camera shake. I got a great carbon fiber one from amvona on ebay $40. (don’t buy direct from their website.)

I don’t know what your actual cash situation is but if I needed to stay on a tight budget, I would go for this setup:
Nikon D40 – $533.28 from Amazon
Nikon 70-300mm zoom lens – $483.54 Amazon
Amvona carbon fiber tripod – Around $40 from ebay.
SanDisk 2 GB, Extreme III SD card – $34.99 on sale at Adorama

If you have a little more in your budget, I would upgrade the camera body to a D80 or D200. The D300 was just announced so the D200 price should drop quite a bit (most likely in October or November)

If you’re more of a Canon type, you can find similar setups in the same price range from them as well.

Good Luck!

I am currently considering buying a Nikon D3200 with a 55-300mm lense for sports photography. I’m interested to see some examples of image quality at all zooms (preferably full zoom), and would like some feedback on whether I should purchase the camera and lense. It would be my first camera/lense ever.

Thank you

Other than the fact that the Nikon D3200 has a higher performing sensor than my D300 and that my 300 mm f/2.8 is a faster lens than the 55-300 mm lens, you can see that a 300 mm lens for shooting sports is a good focal length

http://s862.photobucket.com/albums/ab182/fotomanaz/Answers%20album/?action=view&current=i_AIA3008copy.jpg

http://s862.photobucket.com/albums/ab182/fotomanaz/Answers%20album/?action=view&current=iBonnerInAirc.jpg

I do sports (action) photography with a Nikon D80 (thinking of upgrading to the D300 btw) … I want to get a faster lens and am considering the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR or the 80-200mm f2.8 (without VR).

Given that the new vibration-reduction model costs about twice as much (around $1,700, I think, versus $900) … would it be worth getting for my purposes (handheld sports photography)?

Really, my question is: Since I always use fast shutter speeds (always faster than 1/200, usually more like 1/1000 or more) is there any advantage to VR, or is the fast shutter speed itself enough to essentially eliminate the effects of camera shake?

Appreciate any input on this…

If you are only using this lens for sport photography and absolutely nothing else, and you are constantly using that very fast shutter speed, then the VR is not really going to be much of an advantage for you.

If, however, you plan to use the lens for things other than just sport photography, perhaps for portraits or scenic photography, the VR would come in handy especially for hand-holding some longer-exposure shots.

Hope that helps you out some 🙂