I'm thinking of getting a digital camera for my 13 year old. He'll be using it for sports photography for the school paper. Any recommendations? I'd like to get one w/any necessary software for <$300.
I'm thinking of getting a digital camera for my 13 year old. He'll be using it for sports photography for the school paper. Any recommendations? I'd like to get one w/any necessary software for <$300.
<font color="blue">He'll be using it for sports photography for the school paper. </font color>
What kind of sports? Will he be close to the action or far away? Will the participants be on the move most of the time as in basketball or stationary most of the time as in baseball?
If it's action oriented sports, the camera will need to have the ability to stop motion so look for a high ASA, at least 400, 800 would be better as well as a high shutter speed, e.g., 1/1000 sec. If he's going to be a distance from the action, he'll want a high optical zoom, at least 5x. Some cameras with high optical zoom also have Image Stabilization as video cameras, which is a plus at high zoom levels since they exaggerate any camera shake. To catch a sequence of action, the camera should have a higher frames per second capability, i.e., the time it takes for the camera to record the picture and be ready to take the next one.
Another nice gift would be a mono-pod which screws into the bottom of the camera and provides a place to rest the camera versus trying to always have to hold the camera steady.
Sports photography is one of the more demanding jobs you can ask of a camera as compared to something like portrait photography. As such, finding all these features on a camera for less than or equal to $300 might be difficult.
A great web site for all things related to digital photography is DP Review
All of the things mentioned by MikePa are true. but I think a little above the price range mentioned.
As far as brands go, I'd stick with Sony, Canon, Olympus, or Nikon.
Check out www.dcresource.com for additional information.
Gary
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Hey! Aren't you supposed to be working?
I thinkm what you will find in camerais in the $300 and under range that they all still have the annoying delay between when you push the button and the camera actually takes the picture. That makes it very difficult to actually capture any "action" shots, but with a little persistence and a lot of luck, you can try to anticpate what is going to happen in 2-3 seconds and push the button ahead of time... [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
My brother is a professional photographer/report and his paper bought him a top-of-the-line Nikon digital camera from heaven...the thing looks and feels just like a regular 35M SLR and even interchanges lenses with regular Nikon cameras. And best of all the image capture is just as instantaneous as it should be....the downside of course is that these features cost about $5000.
I am waiting for these features to appear in the sub-$1000 range before I update my camera, in the meantime, I have resigned myself to trying to anticpate what is going to happen and pushing the button just in case [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] ..good thing it is free to take as many pictures as you want.
Digitial cameras are great for many things, but trying to capture fast moving sports people they are crap. The capture delay and the slowness between shots is a big problem. Zoom is also an issue if your not going to be close to the action.
Your $300 is going to be very limiting for something for fast action from a distance.
For causal shots its easy to meet your price range.
>>> What kind of sports? Will he be close to the action or far away? Will the participants be on the move most of the time as in basketball or stationary most of the time as in baseball?
Mainly baseball and wrestling. Please remember he is just a kid, its an 8th grade paper, the printed images will be at most 3X5 and fairly low resolution. He uses a Sony Mavica which the school owns, but the line to use it is fairly long and he can't always get it when he needs it.
The time it takes to get an image is important, but most important for me is ease of use, ruggedness and simple downloading of pictures to the PC.
Thanks a lot for the comments so far. Its been 4 years since I purchased any digital cameras, and those were for work, so I'm pretty far removed from the market.
<font color="blue"> but trying to capture fast moving sports people they are crap. </font color>
This is true of some digital cameras, but not all. The Olympus E-100RS can do 15 fps, more than enough for sports photography.
Andy,
Mike's outlined the needs for good action photography well, and like its been said it all comes at a price. A little more than a year ago I bought a FujiFinepix 2400Z for just under $300, at the time I felt it offered the most value for the money. I think the little Fuji takes some pretty decent photos. I've attached one. It was taken outdoors on a raining/overcast day. You can read some reviews on that camera here. The Olympus 490Z was probably the most comparable and the best price I could find on it then was around $100 more. Today you can find it being sold for less than $200.
Anyhow in the same price range today you can get a lot more camera for that money. One I especially like in that <$300 range would be the FujiFinepix 2800. It has 6X optical zoom plus voice captioning. What I also like is its size and shape. Most especially the contoured handgrip. It has a slightly different look and feel as opposed to a fit in your pocket slimeline design of the 2400 or an Olympus D-520Z. Search the websites for prices vary considerably. Here's a link.
FujiFinepix 2800
DFB
<font color="purple"> simple downloading of pictures to the PC </font color>
For $20 or so, the best investment I made was a Compact Flash card USB adapter (they are also available for the other types of memory).
Plug the card into it, and it appears in "My Computer" as a removable disk....just another folder to drag the images from, and you can easily delete them to clear the memory card.
W2K and XP recognize this new hardware as a USB Mass Storage device, without need of the manufacturer's driver.
With a 128MB flash card, this also makes a handy way to transfer data to my laptop.
<font color="blue"> Mainly baseball and wrestling </font color>
The wrestling and baseball should not be a problem if you select the camera carefully. I have a Olympus 460Z and it works well if you pick a spot and set the focus. If you are trying to follow the action and the camera has to focus then there will be shutter delay.
I have taken thousands of 35mm sports pictures and used up to an eight hundred mm telephoto lens. The 35mm will take better pictures but the digital is easier to work with. Just like sports your son will have to practice but he should be able to take good action shots for the news paper.
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