Express Action Sports

I need a good camera for my kid’s sports games. Just a small point and shoot. But it needs to be great at action shots, to capture that right moment. I know most point and shoots take a few seconds after you press, to actually capture the image.
Any brand works.
I really just need a good zoom, and good for indoor/outdoor action shots.

Got any ideas/have any preferences? Thanks!

And please, not a dslr! I used to have one, and it was big, clunky, very complicated, and I spent a fortune on lenses, filters, and cards!

This tip is going to sound stupid up front but nearly ALL point and shoot cameras can take decent action shots if you compose your shot.

1) Set whatever you’ve got in whatever it has in way of sports mode (for exposure reasons, has nothing to do with how long it takes to take the picture).
2) Press the shutter down halfway until focus locks in. The camera might beep to tell you it has locked in. LEAVE THE BUTTON PRESSED HALFWAY.
3) Watch your action through your viewfinder or on the screen.
4) When you’re ready to shoot, depress the shutter the rest of the way.

You’re going to be surprised. Yes, it took 10 seconds, but you did 9.8 of that before you wanted to take the picture.

If you don’t have a point and shoot at all, get whatever is on sale that you have memory cards for. Get one that looks pretty. Costco and Sam’s usually have decent prices.

I run a few different sports leagues (kcmetroflagfootball.com) and am looking to buy a digital camera and video camera that will produce good quality without the blurs and distortion that my standard cameras do now. Hiring a professional would cost a fortune so I’m trying to see what I can do myself without breaking the bank

Its a fault of HDD and flash drive camcorders as they do not record fast action well, They compress the video to get a large amount on the hard drive or flash drive, also they do not actually record in frames (they are virtual frames) so they try to compare the previous images and sort of make an average on the things that have changed.

Tape is your best bet, far less compressed, and much higher quality (recording in frames) certainly the best option for fast action video.

If you want HD then you have to get HDV, they are more expensive, but well worth it. but as you do not give a budget its hard to help much further, another alternative is for secondhand, there are a number of companies that offer serviced secondhand equipment,

Good luck

RR