What camera do you own?

[Craig]

Ok here is a question, I have some sports photos where a guy is on a podium and about spray the winner's champagne, just as it is coming out of the bottle and being sprayed everywhere, is down to a slow shutter speed? I'll try and find a photo to meeet this question.

[Scaly piscine]

Here's one where the little sod let me get rather close taken two days ago, it's only a young kingfisher apparently - I saw 3 of the buggers fly off from this same spot yesterday. Hoping they'll be around there again when I pop out shortly.

[GIMH]

Nice photo, Scaly

[Anil]

beautiful!

[Langeveldt]

Taken on my balcony last night, always interesting to see the planes struggling to get through as the storm was right over the approach path to PE airport

[Craig]

Do you get a lot of storms at this time of the year? For us we won't see any until the summer months, or at least until October.

[Langeveldt]

Do you get a lot of storms at this time of the year? For us we won't see any until the summer months, or at least until October.

We get them pretty consistently throughout the year, they develop in the interior and then fizzle out when they roll down to the coast.. Most of the biggest storms happen during the summer on the Highveld (Joburg being the city most frequently struck by lightning in the world)

[Son Of Coco]

Found a good online photo editing program from which you can post your shots to Facebook etc:

http://www.photoshop.com

Might help to sharpen up that little kingfisher bloke and bring out his colours.

Will post the first shot I took from my 100mm Macro lens soon if I can work out how

Edit: Here it is (with a few others): Hmmm, they seem a bit large. The first and third shots are with the 100mm macro. The second is with the kit lens: 17-85mm

[DCC_legend]

Was just wondering what would be the best Digital SLR camera to begin with? Was thinking something relatively cheap, easy to use and one that'll last me a few years. Anyone got any recommendations?

[Son Of Coco]

Was just wondering what would be the best Digital SLR camera to begin with? Was thinking something relatively cheap, easy to use and one that'll last me a few years. Anyone got any recommendations?

The cheapest Canons are the 1000D and 450D I think. I have the 40D which is the next step up, but it's going down in price as the 50D has been out for a while.

Olympus might have two of the cheapest, the 410E and 510E (I think). They're also the smallest dSLR on the market. At least they were last time I checked.

Not sure what the cheapest Nikon is, at the time I bought my 40D the Nikon D90 was the same price. I suggest you look at what features you can get on each camera and work out what you're looking to do. And don't worry about video...the Nikon D90 has video, but if you want good video get a video camera. From what I've heard the video on the D90 is hard to use.

Canon and Nikon both have a good range of lenses to choose from. Someone like Langeveldt is better suited to giving you advice on something like this though.

What sort of price range are you looking at?

[DCC_legend]

Cool, cheers. Was thinking of something around £250-£400 max. I've had a look at a few cameras, both new and second hand but don't really know what to choose. What mega pixel cameras should i be looking at and what camera speeds?

I'm just gunna be using it to take a few snaps for the cricket club and a few other things over the summer, developing my skills and eventually getting something better and more powerful (is that the right term?) in a few years, if I still have the interest/money to do so.

[Son Of Coco]

Cool, cheers. Was thinking of something around £250-£400 max. I've had a look at a few cameras, both new and second hand but don't really know what to choose. What mega pixel cameras should i be looking at and what camera speeds?

I'm just gunna be using it to take a few snaps for the cricket club and a few other things over the summer, developing my skills and eventually getting something better and more powerful (is that the right term?) in a few years, if I still have the interest/money to do so.

Maybe post what you've seen on here and how much they were and someone can help you. As far as mega-pixels go I think most dSLRs you'd get now will be at least 10-12, which is plenty. Unless you're planning to blow the picture up big enough to wallpaper your room with it. I'm not sure what you mean by camera speeds - shutter speeds vary from camera to camera but anything that can take a shot at 1/800 - 1/1000 of a second would be fine for cricket shots I'd imagine (again, Langeveldt takes lots of these so he'd be the best man to ask. I can never remember what settings I've had my camera on for different shots). I'd say most dSLR's go higher than this anyway.

You can change the ISO on dSLRs (and some compacts) for action shots anyway, and there's probably a sports mode of some sort too. Eg: on a dull day you might have the ISO at 400-800 instead of 100-200 to allow you to set the shutter speed higher. It's the equivalent of using different film in old-style cameras for different conditions.

I'd suggest looking up some reviews online too(typing in the camera name in google will usually get you some reviews) and seeing what the experts have said about them. You can weigh up your options from there.

These links might help:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-6501_7-6553204.html

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/sh...y/slr-cameras/

[Craig]

Is Manfrotto the best tri-pod to buy? Or are they all the same?

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Finally got my 100-400mm Canon lens a week ago.

Shame it took so long to get, as I've been on a few trips with only a 70-300mm Tamron which is nowhere near as good.

Took some great shots of keas down South and managed to snap a great picture of a hawk in flight over in Sydney, and a decent close up of it when it landed. With a bit of zoom trickery and sharpness enhancement on the old computer, I've now got a great photo of a hawk's head in profile.

[Son Of Coco]

Is Manfrotto the best tri-pod to buy? Or are they all the same?

It depends on what you're after I think mate. I''ve been looking at this myself as I want a new one. I bought the last one in Edinburgh 6 years ago. I think if you look at some photography forums you'll find there is a massive range in prices and quality. The really good ones are usually the legs combined with a ball-head to hold the camera and are really, really sturdy. but I was looking at what some of these guys pay and it's between $US500 and $US900 I'd look at $AU 250 max I think. I'm not a professional by any stretch of the imagination.

Manfrotto are supposed to be good, I think the key is to make sure the tripod and head will take the weight of your camera without it pushing the head back down when it's fully extended. Mine does that now, so you don't get the full height out of the tripod.

Look online at some of the forums mate and see what they have to say about different tripods. You'll at least get an idea of what brands are around and what's supposed to be good. Just ignore the part where 99% of them are talking about ridiculously expensive tripods.

There was one that was supposed to be good for travelling around for about $US250 on ebay...but I've forgotten the name. I'll tell you when I find it again, but that's still expensive. There are heaps of cheap ones around.