Best sport camera?...

chloewindle1 · Apr 12, 2014

So, I have posted a lot in this group because I love it. My head is just all over the place. I have done lots of research (too much!).. and now, yet again, my brain is sizzled with information. I shoot equine photography and I want to keep shooting with Nikon (as I prefer them to Canon's). I have done some research on the D7000, D7100, D600, D700, D800 and D3.

What camera do you shoot sports with? and WHY? What do you LIKE about it? and what do you think ISN'T so great? I need a camera that can get put through the paces with great outcomes (I shoot in Manual), a camera that is great in low light situation (with correct lenses of course) as I have started to shoot indoors with showumping and dressage ect.

Thank you

chloewindle1 · Apr 12, 2014

Also forgot to mention, a £900 budget (second hand)

IronMaskDuval · Apr 12, 2014

If the D800 is on your list, that should do what you need. I think the max shutter is 1/8000 and being FF, it'll be better at low light than the D7100.

curtyoungblood · Apr 12, 2014

The D800 probably isn't the best choice. 4 fps is a little slow for sports. You'll want a healthy mix of high fps and solid auto focus performance. Also, a crop body may actually work better for sports as it gets more reach out of your lenses.

IronMaskDuval · Apr 12, 2014

curtyoungblood said:
The D800 probably isn't the best choice. 4 fps is a little slow for sports. You'll want a healthy mix of high fps and solid auto focus performance. Also, a crop body may actually work better for sports as it gets more reach out of your lenses.

Well the d7100 shoots at higher fps but doesn't do well in low light...so....

imagemaker46 · Apr 12, 2014

There isn't one "best" camera for shooting sports. High fps is overrated and used as a crutch by most photographers these days. I like the idea of a crop sensor as mentioned, even if you had a lens longer than a 300mm, it does make a difference. For your needs look for a camera with great iso capabilities around 3200iso, for indoor events under what will likely be poor lighting.

Pick a camera that feels comfortable in your hands, if it doesn't it never will, and will all come down to the abilities of the person holding the camera to achieve that great outcome.

KmH · Apr 12, 2014

curtyoungblood said:
The D800 probably isn't the best choice. 4 fps is a little slow for sports. You'll want a healthy mix of high fps and solid auto focus performance. Also, a crop body may actually work better for sports as it gets more reach out of your lenses.

Yep.

The D7000/D600/D610 has limited buffer size but can do 6 fps. The D7100 can do 7 fps max when set up properly - 12-bit raw and the 1.3x crop option - but also suffers with limited buffer size.

The D700 can do 8 fps, and the D3 can do 9-11 fps in DX format, 9 fps in FX.

For doing action sports shooting the auto focus module performance also needs to be considered.
In that regard I recommend only considering cameras that use the Multi-CAM 3500 AF module.

Your budget is about £300 short of being sufficient to buy a used D800.

astroNikon · Apr 12, 2014

chloewindle1 said:
Also forgot to mention, a £900 budget (second hand)

approx $1500 US
does that include a lens as I know you were looking at 70/80 - 200/2.8s
have you looked at any f/4 constant aperture lenses ?

I have a d7000 and d600 and I prefer the 7000 for sports. So I would recommend a crop camera 7000/7100

I also primarily use a 80-200/2.8 AF-D lens
but I also do well with my 75-300 AF (old lens). I take pictures of flying airplanes, so they are moving fairly fast and the AF works fine. The lens is supposedly in the slow focusing design but it does well

The question that was never answered was that what is your "low light"
I recommend adding a light meter app to your phone and get a reading of your "low light" situations.

Derrel · Apr 12, 2014

You'd probably have enough money to buy a used D700 maybe, at current exchange rate you'd have $1507 US dollars. I noticed used Nikon D7100 bodies go for around $925-$950 from KEH.com. The D7100 has pretty good high ISO capability for an APS-C camera...I think it has the best High-ISO capability of any crop sensor body...Scott Kelby shot a three-day all day hockey tournament with the D7100, and he said he felt it was pretty solid up to ISO 4,000, which is pretty good. TPF's TheLost shoots for some kind of company that does school sports coverage...he likes the D7100, and gets stuck shooting in a lot of poorly-lighted H.S. gyms and dingy H.S. football fields.

chloewindle1 · Apr 12, 2014

I'm more so going towards a d700, would this be a good choice???

JohnnyWrench · Apr 14, 2014

I've shot a fair amount of sporting events (spring training baseball and a few college football games) with my D700 and the only feature that falls short is the frame rate. At 5 fps I'm sure I've missed a few shots that would have been captured if I'd had the battery grip which bumps the frame rate to 8 fps. That being said I just picked one up on ebay in great shape for about $65. Otherwise the camera is great. Excellent autofocus, large buffer, good ISO performance, comfortable to shoot for extended periods and it's built like a tank. I'm undoubtedly the weak link in the chain and would definitely recommend the D700.

djacobox372 · Apr 14, 2014

imagemaker46 said:
High fps is overrated and used as a crutch by most photographers these days.

Yeah I can get the perfect bat on 90mph fastball with just one click... sarcasim

FPS is far and away the most important camera feature for sports. Its overrated for other things but not sports.