ChrisB

There seems to be quite a few folks into camera on here, so here's a question for you.

I've currently got a Canon Digital Ixus. I originally brought it as a gadget but it's got me interested in photography. Lovely piece of kit.

As for action shots, I mainly photograph American Football and motor racing / track days. The quality from the Ixus is fine for me (mainly web use).

American Football:

From the sideline, the 2x zoom on the Ixus isn't enough to get action from the middle of the field.

Hoppy

ChrisB, I can maybe help you out on some general principles but I'm not up to date with the latest digital trickery it moves so fast.

Sport is a very difficult and specialised area of photography, requiring expensive equipment and immaculate technique. Your Canon Ixus has the 35mm film camera equivalent of a 35-70mm lens on it. Pros will use anything from 300mm to 600mm to get close to the action while staying at a safe distance. These lenses cost £housands, mainly because of their huge light gathering maximum apertures which are needed to maintain high shutter speeds to freeze the action and minimise camera shake.

Okay, that's the ideal but you'll do much better with a longer lens on a digital camera. Try to get at least to the equivalent of 200mm on a conventional camera. That will be vastly better than what you've got now and going much longer can get you into serious camera shake problems.

For good panning shots you just need to practise and practise. With a digital camera, you can practise all you need just by snapping cars on the road.

Panning when close to the subject is almost impossible as the car will move towards you relatively slowly then race past in a flash just when you need to shoot. You'll end up with lots of pics of tail pipes like that. The trick is to move back as far as you can, zoom on maximum. Pre-focus on the spot you want the car in, then pick it up nice and early in the viewfinder, tracking it smoothly and squeeze the shutter gently. Keep on panning and follow through. Smoothness and timing are key.

You will soon notice that some kind of support is needed for consistent sharpness and a good hit rate. A mono-pod is just the job. This month's Practical Photography magazine (May) has a discount subscription offer plus a free £25 mono-pod.

Other factors to consider are that you can get an all-sharp image when shooting cars head-on, but no chance on a drive-by without shutter speeds in the 1/1,000th area or shorter. And the blurred background you get by panning is much more effective anyway. It would be good to know what shutter speeds the camera is using, so you can see the differences, but not many digitals show it.

Hope that's of some help.

Richard.

IWatkins

Chris,

All good info from Hoppy above (love the explanation of panning, much better than I could do )

As for equipment ? I think it is going to be expensive to get real quality gear in digital form. I've been looking about and we are talking 4 figures before you add in lenses which can be half way to five figures.

However, there are a few long lense non-professional digital cameras on the market now, but I haven't really payed much attention to them, but maybe worth a look. I think there is an Olympus with 300mm equiv. zoom lens built in.

Because I've already got a load of 'analogue' SLR gear, I'm awaiting the digital backs for SLRs which have been promised for ages but haven't really arrived. I'm not suprised to be honest, why would a camera company want to release a 300 pound digital back for a high end SLR when they can ask 3k for a digital SLR complete. Mr. Cynical, me ?

Cheers

Ian

bob

I have a Fujifilm FinePix 4900 zoom. The zoom goes to about 210mm. It has the usual program modes and is much the same as my last SLR. It will also do small movies. I still get problems with panning. With fast cars close up.(is the car going to be there went it takes pic) I sometimes use continuous shooting this takes pic's every 0.2 sec so after half a dozen shots I find the one I want and dump the rest.

Neil Micklethwaite

Ian

Josh ( Levy ) uses Digital Chassis's - I think they are Nikons.

So basically all his old lenses fit the new digital chassis.

I believe he bought them separatly but he still paid a LOT for them.

IWatkins

Neil,

Yeah I know. I had a good drool last time I saw Josh (because of his camera equipment not him personally )

Cheers

Ian

Neil Micklethwaite

Ian

Funny that every body drools over Josh's camera ( including him ). The only man I know who wears two £3k medallions.

I know he HAS to have one for his line of work as most ( if not all ) Newspapers only accept digital stuff now.

Still too pricy for my liking - Although weighing up costs of film / processing he saves I'm sure it pays for itself pretty quickly.