£800 Budget - DSLR

[RichMann29]

Hello,

I have been looking around the post and seen some good advice, so signed up to get some more specific advice.

From the new year I'm heading into sports photography for the first time. Currently I have a budget of £800 - what would suit myself best. Motorsport and Football being my first priority sports.

I have put this on another forum to as I'm trying to get as many peoples views so I have a good range to look at when I eventually go to purchase my first equipment.

Any help would be great.

Rich

[RichMann29]

yes I am buying from scratch, to start with it will be the circuits around the UK, Brands most likely as its closet, but I like my racing so it will take me all over.

New and used, I have done a lot of internet searching so far, yet to got to a shop, possibly this weekend or next I will be able to get along to cameraworld which I believe sell new and used?

[RichMann29]

To start with it will be evening and weekends I will be taking photos.

Has anyone bought from trade camera shows, are they worth the visit?

[RichMann29]

Great responses from all, seems to be such a saturated market when I go looking on a google search.

This will be my first dslr, to start off it will be local football stadiums (evening and weekends) and also the circuits during the day (week or weekend)

I am planning on learning the ins and outs as much as I can for next year with the view to be able to produce good quality photos towards the end of the year. Although having read through various reviews and forums a good lens to start with seems to be a must to give me a good platform to work from. (depending how I pick it up)

First off I was looking at entry level, then after some of yours and other comments I started to looked more used mid range cameras (Nikon primarily as I understood there models straight away).

In terms on lenses are they better to buy new or used. As some people suggest used bodies seem a better by than new currently?

Appreciate your help,

Rich

[RichMann29]

Thanks for the advice I will keep hunting and see what I can find out there, do you have any recommendations as to who to buy used equipment from, like MPB?

[RichMann29]

SlidingSideways said:

What you do need, as mentioned, is good AF speed, and both the camera and the lens you're using need to be up to the job.
Look for lenses with hypersonic AF motors (USM on Canon kit, HSM on Sigma, not sure what the others call it) as older (cheaper) lenses will often have slower drive motors.
On the camera, AF will generally improve as you go up the range. Canon xxD bodies have better AF than the xxxD bodies.

Super I will keep that in mind when having a look at the lenses in future.

[RichMann29]

Simpo Two said:

Actually I use eBay!

SlidingSideways makes good points, especially the fact that you don't always want to freeze action - eg a car panning shot might use 1/125th second to get motion blur on the background. But there will times when you do want to freeze action, perhaps in the pits, and a blurry shot of a footballer probably isn't going to look very good. But any camera can do 1/125th so it's not a buying issue.

Do you find you get better equipment for price than in the shops like cameraworld which ive seen in near to me in Chelmsford?

[RichMann29]

with the used cameras, I keep seeing from the dealers the shutter count. Presuming the lower shutter count the better for the camera? a lot of them are in the 20000+ range, would you say that's average really for a camera that's been used as a hobby or used regularly?