Sports Dad needs help picking a camera

[TeamPhotoDad]

Hello,
I am a Dad of a 11 year old boy and 15 year old girl both of them are very active in sports. I take pictures of them swimming, diving, track, football and wrestling. I take a lot of pictures and get called "Team Photo Guy". I make a slide show at the end of each season using Powerpoint and show it at the year end banquets. I enjoy taking the pictures and the kids really enjoy seeing themselves up on the screen. I have learned a lot each year but have a long way to go. I had a Fuji FinePix S5200 which took OK pictures but it broke. I liked the size of it, auto focus and anti shake. I did have a lot of problems with the lighting inside the gyms for the wrestling season, otherwise it took OK pictures. I am on a limited buget (2 Kids) and looking for help on finding the right camera for the right price. I would really love any help anyone can give me. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!

[Frog]

Please tell us what "limitied budget" means and whether you are able to consider a dslr.
You'll get more specific recomendations that way.

[TeamPhotoDad]

Sorry, Between $200 & $300
Thanks

[Kajuah]

Aside from the casio EX-F1 which may well be very out of the price range (never have to worry about missing a shot again) you could try ....


try out a canon powershot sx100, they run about mid 200s now and are very good with their Image stabilization and ability to shoot full manual/manual focus/macro mode/color settings/control whitebalance and a variety of settings (firmware turns it into a DSLR).

some reviews and information can be found here:

if you're not tooooo intense bout image quality the 40x zoom is great too, and the 10x lets you focus in a good 60 mm focal range, at the least, i think it goes all the way up to 200+ equiv. of focal range with the 40x (keep in mind that after 10x zoom the pixels are digitally enlarged in the camera).
price:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PROD...S/SX100ISA.HTM
info and specs:
http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/con...view-16125.htm
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0708/07...nonsx100is.asp

i understand the limited budget, working class citizen here who cant even afford to support himself ! Haha! (it's really not as funny as i make it out to be)

[TeamPhotoDad]

Thanks for the info and links! I will check them out.

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

THe last camera I would use is a casio. If I wanted a calculator, I'd go with a casio. But you're onto something with that SX100. However, one thing you want to watch for is falling into the "more megapixels is better" myth. It isnt. I came across an interesting article today about how more mega pixels is not necessarily a good thing. According to Image Engineering – a company that does testing of digital cameras for photo magazines in Germany – the quality of digital pictures has steadily decreased since the state of the art was six megapixels back in 2004. And because they don’t have a “dog in this hunt,” they put forth a compelling argument for buying new digital cameras with less mega pixels and not more.

The argument is essentially this: CCD chips on point and shoot cameras a smaller and as such, fitting in more pixels causes them to lose light sensivity. Sure, there’s more data on the chip, but the chip can’t absorb the light data and what it ends up with is a picture that has more noise than image quality. In addition, the more megapixels a camera has, the larger the lens it needs to provide the clarity it deserves and prevent diffraction due to a loss of detail with smaller apertures. But since we’re talking portable point and shoots here, those large lenses simply aren’t being made.

Finally, with larger mega pixels comes longer saving time due to their requires huge storage capacity, or more compression if not storing images in RAW format. The result is a noisier image and a dissatisfied camera user who thirsts for high quality and speed but fell into the trap of "more must mean better."

In the end, relying on a smaller MP that can balance all these needs may indeed be a better answer. Cheaper too.

[TeamPhotoDad]

Thanks for the info!!

[TeamPhotoDad]

Does anyone know about the Kodak Z1012 10.1 MP? Costco has it on sale for $229 with a free 4GB SD Card. Do you think this camera will meet my needs? Thanks for any help you can give!!!