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Digital SLR around £500?

M

matty_marie

pfm Member
I'm after taking a few shots of my lad playing football for his team. I'm after a digital SLR with a couple of lenses (one general purpose, one zoom).

I've seen Nikon D50's with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G and 55-200mm f/4-5.6G lenses included for £565 all in.

Any good for what I need? any alternatives? It needs to be idiot proof!!
 
matty_marie said:
I'm after taking a few shots of my lad playing football for his team.
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One of these cheap cameras with it's 10X Optical Zoom used correctly should give you 95% of your expectations and at about £65 new/unused off ebay why spend more ? even the close-ups are Okay.
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Here's a photo with a cheaper Vivitar (£38) by a female who doesn't press the shutter a dozen times a year,why spend a small fortune ?
Brianboards03-04-06067.jpg
 
I think at £500 your main issue will be getting a lens that will picture your lad sufficiently the D50 stock lens renders the bottom of my garden OK at around 20 feet but after that, it gets messy.

Perhaps you might be better with a digi camcorder?
 
Thanks for the advice. Those shots are very good. I'm no photographer as you've probably guessed but with the cameras you've mentioned would I be able to restrict the depth of field and 'force' a fast shutter speed? I'm just thinking from around 30 -40 yds with the zoom, would I be able to get a good shot? I'm hoping that from the touchline, I could get a few good shots of him up to the middle of the pitch, obviously any further would be pushing my luck.
 
The most important feature you will need is a fast shutter response to pressing the shutter release, so do a few tests on shooting moving objects when they pass specific objects. If you are not careful you will get a camera that actually exposes the sensor up to 2 seconds after pressing the shutter. This tends to definitely restrict you to DSLRs that use electro mechanical shutters rather than an electronic exposure process found on cheper cameras.
 
As with HiFi, so with cameras...

Do you buy your HiFi from magazine and forum recommendations, or do you go to a dealer and have a good listen?

If the latter, then the equivalent in the camera world is to either go into Jessops or a small independant shop and spend several hours on having a go with each model. Go in mid-week when they've got more time and they're not frazzled as they frequently are on a Saturday. They should let you try out each of the 4 models that are in the running: Nikon D50, Canon EOS350D, the aforementioned Pentax and an Olympus E300.

The beauty of digital cameras is that you can immediately see the result. Maybe take the kid with you in full football gear and have him run around outside the shop :)

Yes, they are about 10% more expensive than buying on-line from Amazon etc., or you could be really cruel and use the shop to try everything and then buy on-line, but there's no substitute for hands-on in this case.
 
Good point, just time is a problem at the minute. I'm working in the middle of nowhere and he plays football every Saturday!
I'm now leaning towards a cheaper 'fit for purpose' rather than a Rolls Royce job, as that's the sort of guy I am. I'm figuring £150 ish should get me some results I'll be satisfied with, it's not like they'll be on the back page of the paper, just very presentable. I had no idea you could get a reasonable spec for £150 when I posted this.
You're right, cameras are like hi-fi, you get what what you pay for, but it's the law of diminishing returns again, would the difference between £150 and £500 be lost with my total lack of photographic talent?
 
matty_marie said:
You're right, cameras are like hi-fi, you get what what you pay for, but it's the law of diminishing returns again, would the difference between £150 and £500 be lost with my total lack of photographic talent?
Click to expand...

Plus with hifi all the user needs to do is sit and listen (toe-tapping optional) whereas to some extent a camera is only as good/bad as the person using it; ie a 'good' photographer can get better results using a camera costing £50 than a 'bad' photographer can get with one costing thousands.

What's needed for the novice is something that makes it difficult to cock things up, with enough features to do what's wanted but not so many as to baffle and confuse. Over time, you can progress to something more versatile/complex/expensive.
 
The earlier point about the time it takes for the camera to make up it's mind before taking the picture is very important for the kind of action photography that you want to do. A SLR may be the only way to go.

The delay is quite agonising on my £250 Canon point and shoot. When I was taking some shots of classic cars trundling around Oulton Park racetrack, I'd press the shutter button with the car in the middle of the picture and by the time the camera took the shot it was nearly all the way to the right hand side. I actually had to compensate by pressing the shutter when they were on the left hand side of the picture...:mad:

With action photography you want to see a particular situation, like someone coming in for a tackle, your kid lining up for an Alan Shearer type shot etc., press the shutter button and take the shot within a few tenths of a second. A delay of even a second can mean that you miss it. How long does it take for your kid's foot to move from being right the way back to actually striking the ball?

If you haven't got time to go into a shop, could you borrow a friend's SLR?
 
Hmmm. I see your point about the shutter delay and yes, I can see it being a big problem. OK, so what do SLR's start at? I can't really see me getting into changing lenses either, so is there a decent SLR with a zoom lense for sensible money or am I back up to spending £500+?
 
I bought a Nikon D50 with 18-55 Zoom for @ £450 incuding SD card from Amazon. I'm really happy with it - I've got back into taking 'proper' photos!

Stephen

balls.jpg
 
Shutter delay is now sufficiently short on modern D-SLRs that it's no longer an issue unless you're into photographing the most fleeting of moments.

The bigger issue is whether the camera's AF system is fast enough to focus on a moving target and I'm not convinced that the D50's AF module is up to that. You could always manually focus the lens, but many D-SLRs have viewfinders so crap that you're often left guessing if your subject is in focus.

All things considered and for sensible money, you may want to look at the Pentax *ist-DS and a couple of secondhand manual-focus lenses. For insane money, the pro Nikon and Canon D-SLRs are worth a punt, as are the fancy Olympus 4/3s models.

Joe
 
Hey they had to do it once upon a time.

I got some usuable shots whilst following Harrier Hawks at the hawk Conservency so I think you will be OK with your son. The best bet for a safe shot is to use the sports mode which switches the auto focus to dynamic meaning you can shot regardless it constantly focuses without beeping at you.

I think ultimatly a DSLR is the way to go at the price point you mention as you get some much more for your money, I have picked up a 500 quid point and shoot which should really be shit hot and it was still dog slow on shutter speed.

Also DSLR on JPEG should allow constant shooting, one after the other, I have yet to find a point and shoot which does this.

But I would still be concerned with the stock lens on the D50, it pans quite wide which is usufull but the zoom is restricted and might not get your son in a nice frame unless he is running down the flank you are on.

That being said, ebay has hundreds of very reasonably priced nikon lenses which zoom to 200mm plus, they are not great quality but I believe that family shots are more about the moment then newspaper grade shots.
 
Thanks to all for the replies. Looks like I can't avoid a trip to a shop to see what's on offer.

I know what will happen, I'll turn up with my shiney new toy, and some jobs-worth will tell me I can't take photos of my kid in a public place & I'll get locked up as some sort of perve!
 
Shutter lag is not that big issue with the latest cheap models, they've come a long way lately.
Something like the latest superzoom Panasonic/Canon/Sony (S2/H1), you're getting 35-400mm lens with image stabilizing and video capturing for 200-300 UKP, check the zoom shutter response in reviews but it's usually around .5 secs ?
It's not an SLR but should be enough.

Omer.
 
I have great difficulty taking a moving shot with my digi (admitidly a few years old)

I'd love one of those cameras that takes a burst of shots, then you just delete the ones that werent in time. With one like that you might just catch something, just one shot, that to you, is worth more than the price of camera ...
 
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