Digital Camera recommendations?

Dont get a digital camera if you're looking for excellent pictures. Most digitals have a signifigant lag time, so when the picture takes, the person's gone by you. Get a Nikon with removable lens and adjustable f-stop. If you want a digital camera, think about what you would use it for besides races and then balance size with quality. I like the Pentax Optio S4i... fits in an altoids can and takes excellent pictures.

You need to get a digital camera that has a secondary level of cache so as to buffer the image before saving it to your memory stick. Doing it this way allows for quicker response times from the digital camera because saving to a faster buffer then moving the data to permanent storage is much faster than direct storage.

Hope that helps.

Also don't use the auto focus on the digital camera..you will experience less lag with manual focus.

Minolta A200.

http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/minolta-dimage-a200-reviews.html

This site has great info.

By the way I have the P92 Sony. Great camera. 5.1Megapixel

You can find some 4.1 for ~$200 and that really is plenty of camera.

The problem with a digital camera is you will need a good quality printer unless you take your memory stick into walmart or another shop to print up your photos.

Likewise you can sink money into a good photo suite of software.

You need to buy a bigger memory stick, whatever camera you get. 286/512 will be good.

So you know, there are other costs associated with the purchase of a camera.

And definitely look into a small tripod (they are the size of a cell phone and have telescoping legs). I use this a lot for family photos and group shots that otherwise would leave the picture take out of the shot.

Also keep in mind that the technology is constantly emerging. I bought the Sony Mavica CD-1000 (a whopping 2.1 mega-pixels) back in 2000...it was $1200. I probably couldn't sell it for $50 today.

Don't know why everyone has to make everything so complicated.

Kodak EasyShare. It takes nice pictures and it's easy to use.

this is a great website.

Go here to buy, when you are ready.

http://www.digitalliquidators.com/

i would recommend any canon *powershots*

Most of the cameras listed above are useless for taking pictures of races. Why? You pics will look blurry because the camera does not the ability to take photos of moving objects correctly. There is way more to look at when buying a camera besides megapixels. The adjustable shutter settings and aperature settings is important to capture moving objects.

Don't buy here. Read the reviews of it.

http://www.price.com/vendor_review_display.html?vid=-2147483186

The Canon EOS Digital is $800 with lens. You would be hard pressed to get a film SLR of any quality for less than $500. I have used it's older borther the 10D for 3 years now for track and other sporting events and it works great. You can print up to 12x18 with clarity. The only caution is that the auto focus isn't perfect, it only becomes an issue if you are tracking (following the aciton) quickly. More a problem with bikes than runners though. You would likely have a simliar problem with 500 buck SLR though too.

Any of the point and shoots will be disappointing.

for the most part though it is all about the lens. I can't emphisize that enough. If you have crappy lens you will get crappy pictures. the included lens is alright (not Great) othe r good lower cost lens are the 28-105mm 3.5-4.0 USM (note there is a cheaper 28-105mm 4-5.6 or somthing which isn't as good). the 28-135mm IS USM is is supposed to be great for lowlight, have heard it allows you to stop down to 15 with out shake. anouther option is the 24-85mm. All are priced around 200-300 bucks.

There are also a bunck S lens that specially designed for Canon digital (of which the included lens is one) that I have not looked into since they don't work w/ the 10D but are worth checking out. photo.net can help in this regard...search the forums.

Something to look for that I have used is a setting for a series of pictures. I have a 2.1 megapixel digital Elph that takes 4 to 6 pictures at about 1 second intervals. I have used it at running events and it can be really great. At Penn Relays I would take 6 pictures of the lead runners. The first three would be too far away, but one or two would be pretty good, and the last would be blurry as they ran past me. Its digital, though, so I only kept the best of the series. I think I took 120 pictures during the women's 4x1500. One caveat, though, this doesn't work in low light because the camera wants to use the flash for every picture that it takes.

Also consider what you are using it for. My 2.1 megapixel is fine for putting pictures on a website, which is all that I use it for. If you are taking pictures of a wedding that needs big, exquisite prints, then the 2.1 megapixel would suck.

Camera,

Besides the Canon EOS Digital, do you know of the best cost to quality ratio of some SLR digitals? I have been doing traditional photography but would like to make the switch to digital. Furthermore, I am kind of pissed about my Pentax ZXL that seems to have all kinds of problems.

Also, Camera or anyone else, any suggestions/tips on making some money from photography? I just do it for fun now but would like to do some freelancing or something. I have some pretty decent stuff. Help would be greatly appreciated.

E

I would suggest the Canon as well.

You could contact local race directors and set up a photo taking service at road races, if someone isn't already doing so. It could get pretty complicated though, if you want to create online ordering and all that jazz. May be more trouble than it's worth.

Yeah I agree that doing the online race photo thing could get pretty complicated. Any ideas for selling artistic photography? There are lots of places around town that display local art...maybe I should try that.

Why not join the ranks of the paparazzi?

Since they aren't being made any longer you can find a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-F717 for a reasonable price. Fully auto settings, Carl Zeiss lens...a great camera.

Good plan...just not too many famous people in mid-Missouri. Not too many famous people in Missouri at all.