AllanB

I'm looking for a digital camera and need something with a fast CCD to allow me to take multiple shots backs to back and it needs to have a fast shutter speed. I'm going to be taking pics of my mates car racing in the Toyo Tyres series hence the need for a fast shutter speed. I also need a LiOn/NiMh batery pack rather than spending a fortune on disposable batteries over a year which will cost the price of a decent camera alone !

I'm looking at a few Cameras such as the Canon Ixus, Fuji F601 or the Fuji 6900. All seem to have shutter speed from 1/1500 to 1/2000 of a second.

Has anyone used one of these to take action pics as I need some feedback if any of these will be up to the job.


Thanks



Allan

MartinM

OK - a slightly more considered response....in bullet form

-It will have to be quite a bright and sunny day to be able to take pics at less than 1/1000 sec
-Around 1/1500 - 1/2000 will freeze the action for a car coming at between straight on and about 60 degrees
-Frozen action shots often don't show how fast a car is going - unless there are other visual clues - smoke from tyres, lots of body roll, obvious opposite lock etc
-Frozen action shots are good to show sponsors, because their stickers are easy to see
-Frozen action shots are effective if there's a whole pack of cars (eg a typical caterham race where there's loads of them)
-Frozen action shots will *usually* make the bakground (crowd, bollards etc) a bit more distracting.

The answer is panning, as in the second shot above. You can pan a car from about 60 deg to 90 deg across you.
- Pan shots are good for the driver 'cos they imply speed (even if it's quite low!)
- Pan shots are often difficult to take with P&S digital cameras (like the ones you're looking at) because of the shutter/autofocus delay (up to 1 or even 2 seconds), but it can be done. Just get use to only having half (or none of) the car in the picture sometimes!
- P&S cameras rarely get above 1 frame per second, which is really quite slow for a sequence, or whilst trytingto follow an accident happening in front of you.

What I'd do, is borrow a digital camera from someone, and either:
- go to a race meeting (not your mates to start with)
- sit at the side of a road (not too prominently)...
... and take some pictures of the passing cars at different angles and at different shutter speeds. Have a look through them on a PC and decide whether you really need high shutter speeds. I think 1/1000 would be quite enough.

Sorry its another long post from me - I didn't have time to write a short one

chiark

I have the Fuji 6900z and love it. For what you want, I'd consider the S602, which is the replacement for the 6900z with the following upgrades:
- "class leading" speed of focus (apparently)
- Higher ISO (up to 1600 ISO equivalent, but only at low res)
- Less noise (ISO 400 on the 6900z is very noisy, no noise on the S602)
- Microdrive compatable (has both SM and CF slots)

With high ISO you can push the film speed up to retain the aperture that you want. The lens is a good fast lens anyhow for an integrated one, so that isn't so much of an issue.

AllanB

Excellent feedback guys, thanks for the input.


AllanB

andym172

I'm just about to buy a Nikon Coolpix 5700 having considered the Fuji FinePix 602z and the Minolta DiMage 7i (see Blowdog's gallery: http://www.blowdog.com/html/cars/r34_night.html).

Sites to visit if you haven't already done so are www.dpreview.com for reviews and www.pricerunner.co.uk for getting the best price.

You could also try e-mailing the following people for even cheaper prices:

Import from Hong Kong - josephlai88@netvigator.com (say andym172 recommended you!)

Import from US - auctions@cameta.com


Hope this helps!

Andy.

p.s. has anybody actually imported a camera from abroad? If so, when and how much tax did you pay?

andym172

p.p.s.

Martin - that Elise shot is excellent!

Which camera were you using?

Andy.

GM

I've got the 6900 - it is a great camera but not ideal for action shots due to the delay between pressing the shutter button and the camera actually taking the picture. You can work round this to some degree - for example, switching the autofocus off and pre-focussing on where you're going to take the picture helps.

Even then, the delay does make panning shots difficult - at least you're not wasting film - so you do need to think about how to work to the camera's limitations.

I took a lot of shots in Catalunya earlier this year and I got a few which I think are pretty good - but I'm sure I'd have done better using my good ol' Nikon FE 35mm.

chiark

Good point - the shutter lag does take some getting used to. All digitals, except SLRs, exhibit this. The s602 is apparently very good.

What Digital Camera review the Nikon 5700 this month. Looks very tasty!

chiark

...and as luck would have it, there's a D30 on ebay right now for around the 700 quid mark. You'll need a lens tho...

chiark

Ah, one other point: if you're looking for something to take action shots, the "drive" function of the camera you get is very important, coupled with buffer handling.

On the 6900z (and s602) the drive function can take a series of 5 photos in a second at any resolution. Downside is the camera then locks for a while (around half a minute when using 6 megapixel mode) whilst it writes the photos to smart media during which time you cannot take any further pictures.

The camera never locks in normal use though. In normal use, I have never had to wait for the buffer to empty to take photos. Once a picture is taken, you can take another and the buffer is emptied to the smartmedia card in the background, allowing you to carry on with what you're doing.

Minolta have just announced a replacement for the Dimage 7i already, called the Dimage 7hi. See DPReview for more.

Final standard bit of advice is that you're spending quite a bit of money on this, so be sure of what you're buying. Read reviews, get opinions, get a shortlist then go and play with the cameras. I was all set to buy a Nikon 995 until I picked up both the Nikon and the Fuji in my local Jessops. I spent over an hour annoying the sales rep, and ended up buying the Fuji there and then. They pricematched InternetCamerasDirect.com, which was nice.

Another point about Jessops. In this month's What Digital Camera, they've got an advert with a voucher in it that states they will match ANY price in the magazine for anything. So if you find the camera that you want, produce the voucher and the cheapest price, and that's what you'll pay.

No association with Jessops, but they were very knowledgeable (in the Leeds shop), did me a very good deal plus you can actually get a feel for the camera, which ultimately determines how much you will use it. I've taken over 1300 shots in a year so far...

Tony_W

Allan.

Have you had a look at the Toshiba PDR-M25?

It's got a setting for taking 16 shots at .25sec intervals...not sure on the shutter speed though.

I've ordered one to take footy pictures of my son playing, but it hasn't arrived yet (10 days ago).

Tony

Tony_W

p.s. forgot to say it takes normal AA batteries thouhgm, so I bought some rechargeables which are cheaper than camera batteries and last longer if you buy 1600mAH ones !!

AllanB

Luckilly I can buy the camera at cost which is nice . Soem more great feedback. Sounds like the time delay is on nearly all digital cameras. The Epson one I borrowed off a mate had a big big delay. Seemed ages but was probably a second.

AllanB

chiark

Look on DPReview.com and you'll find comments on the different delays. Of everything discussed so far, the D30 is the only one that'll not give delay - but that's a true SLR.

MartinM

...and the Canon D60 6mpixels
...and the (drool) Canon 1D (4 fantastic mpixels, almost zero shutter lag, 8 frames per second for 3 seconds, absolutely instant autofocus (including refocussing during those 8fps), built like a tank etc etc)...only £4000, if you get a good deal

Dear Father Christmas...

Sorry, just having a Homer Simpson moment.....
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm DSLRs

chiark

And don't forget the wonderful canon **** up which announced their 11MP camera - see the pcmag article

This may be a little out of the price league, admittedly

andym172

There's a Nikon D100 Pro SLR for sale on eBay if anybody's interested.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1378305970

£1,725 on buy it now.

Andy.

MartinM

Not sure you really want fast shutter speed even for motorsport- this will freeze the action and you'll get little/no sense of speed. These pics were taken at 1/1000 sec (which shows a bit of motion blur, but not much) and 1/180 sec - I know which I prefer




[Edited by MartinM - 9/10/2002 11:06:43 PM]

MartinM

Andy

D30 with 70-200 F2.8L at 1/180 sec. One of my better pics ...(that's why I posted it!) ... and it's very impressive when printed at 10x8.

It's the full frame too - no cropping - so my panning skills are getting better!

If only I knew who the driver was, I could probably sell it to him/her

[Edited by MartinM - 9/12/2002 8:41:03 AM]