Thread: Something to start with

Alright! Even though I know quite a few professional photographers, seems like asking them what to start with and boring them with my silly questions seems a bit out of line. And yeah, I would get lost in all the advice pro's would be able to give me.

So the question goes, need something to start shooting. Mostly sporting events, so the moving objects of the shot would be the main target then. Need something that works in lowered and not so good lighting sets. Primarily shooting out of hand, no tripod, no help except my hands, knees or an occasional divider rail between me and players in different games. Any advice?

Yeah, probably the price limit would be somewhere around 1000$ for the first rig for this job. Can't go further than that, where I don't really think that any improvements in equipment would automatically be improvements in the picture quality - because as I've already stated don't know too much about the matter.

Used equipment works, used lenses work, just need something to start with! Thanks a bunch for your help in any way!

I got my D3100 for around $630 not bad pictures...

Well, to begin, asking your photography colleagues/friends for advice is not "silly." They, being professional photographers, have probably gone through a long journey to get them where they are today. Remember, they were as inexperienced as you once. They can provide lots of insight and an array of opinions that should not be turned down, just tell them to explain it to you in 'layman's terms.'

As you probably know, cameras can be expensive. More features, larger megapixel count, and bigger screens are the cause for that. My advice would be to go somewhat cheap for the body of the camera since they are always being updated and their price/value depreciates. Canon and Nikon are great places to start and anyone will tell you that.

I find Nikon to be a good stills camera but with a slightly limited lens selection. They do have a vast collection of older, cheaper film lenses but you would need a camera that includes a lens focusing motor (something that lets you auto focus a film lens). Auto focus is crucial in sports photography to capture the action at long distances. For this reason, unless you get a Nikon with a focus motor (such as the D90) then I would stick to the digital lenses. They're newer, crisper, faster, and will produce a more professional image most of the time, however the catch is the price.

Canon has a wide selection of digital lenses that also have pretty affordable prices. Canon users have gone into HD movie making with some of the higher end cameras, but I won't get into that. The Canon T2i is a starter DSLR for around $600-800 and would be my recommendation for a camera. It has 18 megapixels, 1080p HD video, and lots of features that are comfortable for a beginner. The only reason I recommend this camera is because its more advanced counterparts are over $1000. The Canon cameras do not come with a focusing motor by the way.

For a nice sports lens, you will either need a long focal length Telephoto lens and/or a prime lens.

A telephoto lens is a lens that reaches out past 70mm and zooms in, an example would be a 70-200mm or 100-300mm. The main advantage of these lenses being the spectrum of zoom lengths which allow you to be farther or closer to the scene to get a nice zoom.

A prime lens is a stationary, non-zooming focal length such as 85mm, 135mm, 200mm, 300mm, etc., the advantage to these lenses is a low aperture value that can allow for lower light situations (aperture explained at bottom). You probably wouldn't need this feature too much because you will be outside a majority of the time. However the low aperture lets you have a shallow depth of field (fewer items are in focus) and lets you have nice background blur and sharper focus. Auto focus also helps here. Keep in mind that zoom lenses can also have a low aperture value to get sharper photos with shallow depth of field, but are ultimately more expensive.

I'm just defining these terms in case you are unfamiliar with them because these are the lenses you will most likely be pointed to.

Another feature that is a must-have is Image Stabilization, pretty much self-explanatory. This allows for no blurry or shaky photos, very beneficial for hand-held shots. Image stabilization is on both Nikon and Canon lenses but also increases the price, sometimes dramatically.

For starter's sake, I would recommend the telephoto zoom lens with image stabilization. For the reason of it's dynamic zoom qualities which allow you to be farther away from the action.

A nice starter telephoto lens is this 55-200mm Image Stabilized lens from Canon - Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS Autofocus Lens 2044B002 B&H Photo

Here is the Canon T2i (with the body only) - http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Rebel_T2i.html

If you would like a wider zoom lens (18-55mm) included, here's the link for that - Canon EOS Rebel T2i Digital SLR Kit w/ EF-S/18-55 IS 4462B003

Just a reference of terms.

Terms:

Aperture: the amount of light coming through the lens into the camera. Comes in f-stops, each stop lets in more or less light, the lower the number, the more light can enter. An f-stop such as f3.5 is typical for zoom lenses. This allows a user to shoot inside with lower light relatively well but not great. When you zoom in, the aperture value becomes greater. Some lenses have constant aperture values which don't change when you zoom in, however the process of making these lens makes the lens larger and more expensive.

Shutter Speed: the quickness of the release of the shutter when you take a picture with the camera. A slow speed such as 1/2 of a second lets in more light but needs stabilization on a tripod. A speed at 1/500th of a second, the picture will not be blurry no matter what you do. This also lets in less light.

Happy Hunting and hope this helps