i will be taking some pics while i visit Eindhoven for the Sudirman Cup. between the choice of two cameras: 1. a regular film SLR with fairly fast lenses f1.8 or f2.8 2. a digital point and shoot camera with really poor lens what should i bring to a tournament? the ideal one would be a digital SLR, but that's way way beyond what i can afford so that's out of the question. i will be bringing my point-n-shoot camera anyway, what i need to decide is if i should take the SLR as well. the downside is that it is heavy and bulky for travelling. what do you think?
Hey you're comming to Eindhoven! Great! I don't have time so I can't be there. As for your question: I would go for quality so take the regular bulky camera.
digi cam's a are useless for action shots - i took mine to a local tourney cos i'm the webmaster for a local district league website in the UK. the stills were just blurs - great if ur into modern art but naff otherwise - the best i could do was to shoot movies with it and then use video editing to pull some really below-par stills from it. as my dad said - action requires fast film, v.low shutter speed, high aperature lens. Neil
Depends on what photos you want to take. If you want to take action photos, are you going to be able to get close enough to the action?
load the slr with fast film and your fastest lens, you got all you really need. i keep my old trusty contax with zeiss 50/1.2 lens for those situations. problem with the digi cam in sports or action pix is also the slight time delay from pressing the shutter and the actual picture being taken. snapping the perfect shot of the perfect shot, winds up being the follow through of the stroke by the time the digi cam images it.
Another problem with dig. cam is the flash light is usually not bright enough. In gym, a lot of pics will come out to be really dark to figure out what is really going on out there. Once my friend using his dig. cam in a basketball tourny, came out to be laugh at shooting pic for "tomb raider"...
yeah. badrad's Zeiss 50mm/1.2 alone costs more than my whole setup..... also shows his age though. haha.
You need a real fast lens with fast film. Use ISO800 with an f1.2 lens. Preferably, you should use a telephoto, so a 85mm f1.2 or 100mm f1.8 would be ideal. A 50mm would not give the magnitfication unless you have court side seats. A fast high-end optical stabilizer telephoto like the Canon EF 300 f2.8L IS USM will allow distant shots at relatively high speeds with image stabalization. Only problem is this lens costs 2 arms and 2 legs at US4K. Carry a fast zoom lens in case you need it, but zoom lenses are generally too slow for action photography. Ron
haha. 300/2.8 ... right... actually, i am not expecting image quality like the ones we see from Raphy and Shabok, but also at the same time, i don't want my photos to all come out as TombRaider either! i have had pretty good luck with my 50/1.8 before but those are when i can get close to the players. i guess i will have to live with what i have...
I don't think you should digicams outright. I have a digicam that gets pretty good pictures at 1/800 F2.0. Mine came with a 32 meg buffer so there's no delay between sucessive pictures unless I take more than 24 pictures within a minute (hasn't happened yet.) The good thing about digicams is that you can change film speeds on the fly, apply filters live without having to fiddle with installing getting different filters. Great for special effects, though I guess you probably won't use that much. It's also cheaper to use a digicam since you don't have to develop the film. If I plug the camera into my computer, I can take millions of hi-resolution photos without ever having to fumble with installing/removing film and possibly missing a beautiful shot. Also, there has been occasions where I didn't pay enough attention to installing the film (under time pressure) that I loaded it incorrectly, resulting in missing 10-20 shots until I spotted the error. Voice stamp, if your camera supports it, is also a great bonus. I also like the quality of digicam pictures better because you don't have to worry about imperfections in the film. Some potentially great pictures were ruined because of minor scratches or bubbles in the film I've used. This wouldn't happen with a digicam. Prints can also be reproduced flawlessly with digicams, but not with a standard camera. On the downside, higher end digicams are extremely power hungry. I've gone through 20-packs of AA batteries in a single day before. If you don't have a portable storage device, memory/film can be pricey. But you can buy portable hard drives to store photos for less than $300. Without knowing the specs of your digicam, I'd recommend your SLR for actions though. That doesn't mean you can't bring both, as digicams are pretty small anyway, and can probably fit in the film compartment of your SLR camera bag.
Take a camcorder instead. You'll be able to record the matches - then you can transfer them to VCDs/DVDs for the interest of fellow BC forum particpants.
Looks like kwun will be joining the poor schmucks doing 100 pushups for calling badrad OLD! Unfortunately the lens has an internal rattle. During my earlier days of shutter enthusiasm, I've dropped it many a times. Surprisingly rugged, but inevitable toll has taken. Lens still works, except for the rattle...
Kwun, The Canon EF 400mm f2.8 IS is even bigger and better but at the heftier price tag of $6000++. Anyway, whatever you do, do not use flash or light. Flash will not work at the distance and using a flash will get you bounced out of the stadium real quick . A good digicam is fine but you will need a fast lens and a zoom. Ron
Not so sure I am not so sure if you can even bring a camera into the tournament. At the recent All England, no photography equipment was allowed. I had my video camera and digicam confiscated on my entrance. Apparently Yonex and Sky had the exclusive rights...bah I pay that much for tickets and can't even have the priviledge of snapping my favourite badminton idol. where am I suppose to get merchandise of my favourite idol? One hint is not to bring a camera bag and hide in your pockets. If you don't mind the peculiar looks
