what camera

[arron06]

i fly birds of prey and would like to take some photos of the birds in pursuit of there prey and also photos of greyhound running what is a good begiiner camera i have a canon eos300 but tis a 35mm and its playing up

 

[EBphotography]

Please give us a little more info. Budget, conditions, zoom wanted, etc..

 

[arron06]

budget about 200 (used camera)

zoom within budget

 

[W.Smith]

You could do it with your EOS 300 if it wasn't 'playing up'. So if I were you I would consider consider a current, digital, Canon: the 400 XTi. You've already got (a) lens(es) for it!

For (tame) birds of prey in flight and running greyhounds I'd recommend the new canon EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens to go with that XTi.

However, a budget of $200 for a cam plus lens is very limiting. I wouldn't know what to get within that budget to enable shooting birds of prey in flight and running greyhounds (and get worthwhile images).

 

[Don Simon]

For 200? I don't think you can get that lens for 200 of any currency (except maybe 200 bags of precious metals or illegal substances).
I see a 70-200 f4 L USM for around £500 ($950), and that's without Image Stabilisation. I don't think it would be far wrong to say that L-glass is pretty much out of the question for that sort of budget - as is any current digital body!

For 200 (£ or $) I'm thinking fix or replace (used) the EOS film camera, get a third-party budget zoom, and use high ISO film and focus manually to compensate for the poor max aperture and slow AF... can't really think of any other way to do it for that money.

 

[arron06]

i already have a canon zoom lens EF 80-200mm 1:4.5-5.6 will this do the job

 

[Don Simon]

Well, it would definitely give you the range you need on a digital (it becomes "equivalent" to 128-320mm on a Canon dSLR); on film 200mm might still be a little too short, but there's not much you can really do about that. The main problem is that for your budget it's very difficult to buy a lens that has both the necessary focal length and the wide maximum aperture that would let you use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action. It's not what you want to hear, but your best option would probably be spending more than double your budget on a Canon digital SLR - that way you could safely use 3200 ISO with the lens you already have.