Greetings,
I am in the market for a digital camera that I can take sports fotos with. I know the digital SLR's are far superior with this but I don't want something that large.
ANy tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm leaning towards the Sony DSC-93.

Thanks

 

The Nikon F6 is my pick of the litter. *drool*

Why don't you want something that size? Is this just for your kids sports games?
I'd say head down to your local photography outlet, and test the cameras for yourself. Most point and clicks have a "Sports" mode on them which speeds up the shutter speed. Have the salesman jog across the store and snap some photos will different cameras.

My camera takes decent sports shots, and it fits into the chest pocket in my shirts. It's a Nikon SQ, not very popular due to quality, but that's where Photoshop and Neat Image come in to lend a hand.

 

My roomate just got a Canon EOS Rebel digital since he already had a regular Rebel and all the lenses he has are compatible. It's a great camera but not good for just toting around but takes great pics and has alot of options.

 

After years of shooting slides, I took the digicam plunge with a plan:

- KISS, learn the hardware and software first, put the money into the lens, battery capacity and spares, cheap memory cards, and external flash, upgrade later

- A year later, I'm comfortable with my Canon G-3 rangefinder and how to compensate for it's limitations

- Photoshop Elements and Album are my friends and are becoming increasingly important as I learn

- The 5+Mp cameras will set you back $ but give more editing options, especially cropping, but 4Mp is great bang for the buck

- The ability to shoot RAW is a plus and a big reason I got the G-3

- The Sony you're considering is a great beginner's camera choice. Whichever feels comfortable in your hands and held up to your eye is the best choice, although the large pivoting LCD on the Canon is something I can't live without now

- The secret to sports photography is learning to use hyperfocal distance, at least on the Canons. It eliminates any autofocus time. On the G-3 I use aperture preferred set to f5.6 (sweet spot), manual focus to 5', giving a depth of field of about 3' to 900' and exposure set to continuous. I can shoot 3-4 fps until the buffer fills after around 2-3 sec. Then it dumps the buffer in 3-4 sec and I'm good to go again.

So, I'd say put the money in the glass and software and shoot until the battery quits. My 2¢.

 

I have a 4 megapixle samsung and when compairing the pictures to my dads Cannon elf with the same specks I lerned one thing, it pays to buy name brand. My pictures look hazy before I photo shop them and the colors arn't that life like. This was surpirzing since the zoom and picture size for both cameras are the same. Mine was $250 and his was $450..

 

I have a Cannon A70 (the new model is A75) that I use to take backpacking, rock climbing, and mtn biking pics with. It works great and the movies aren't too bad either.

 

You can tell what I am favorable to. Canons are great cameras and are very easy to operate. They do have the option for a fast shutter speed aka "sport mode". They take great pictures and the software that comes with it is very easy and nice. Here is my gripe about the Sony...you have to buy all Sony accessories. You have to have their memory stick, etc. If you buy a Canon, Olympus, Nikon, etc., they use "generic" memory cards. Just something to consider. A good site to check out would be these:

http://www.dpreview.com/

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...Q=RootPage.jsp

http://www.dcresource.com/

Goodluck and let us know how you make out.

 

I have the a75...it does everything I need.

canontalk.net

 

This is my camera of choice as well. For SLR my wife has a Canon Rebel as does my dad (both are excellent film cameras!). The optics are top notch and that seemed to be the case with their digitial line up as well. I wanted a camera I could use dumb (as in I could hand the camera to someone and they could easily take a picture of us without coaching) but at the same time allowed me to tinker with manual settings (as I really wanted to learn how to do this better). The G3 has been perfect for that!

Bob:
Do you just keep those hyperfocal settings programmed in one of your custom modes? I mean do you have those settings in one of the "c" settings on the dial on top.

Regards, and happy shopping to you MvCrash,
Joel

 

Greetings,
Ok, thanks for the help. Purchased a Sony 4.1 Cyber shot. Came with a free 64 meg card, was on sale for 249.00 and the warden liked it.

 

That's the biggest hurdle in my house...

 

Joel, I go to "A" mode, f5.6, and hit the manual focus button and wheel set to 5'. I tried programming one of the C's, but they didn't retain the manual focus setting. Until I learned hyperfocal, I was having a hard time getting consistent focus, even using center spot. Plus, I was missing even routine shots as the subject moved while the camera was going through the autofocus gyrations. Now I use hyperfocal most of the time, even for routine shots (except when I need that great macro setting) and get much better results. Nice camera, more than I need at this point.