SportsTeam Dad needs help picking a camera

[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? Sports pictures my kids football, swimming, lacrosse, wrestling and track. Thanks for any help you can give!!!

[SmartWombat]

Probably not wrestling, P&S generally don't do too well indoors.

1/4 second between pressing the button and taking a photo will make action photography a challenge, if not frustrating.
But that's life with P&S cameras, predicting the action and pressing the button before it happens.
So Football and Lacrosse will be difficult.

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

The bottom line is that you'll be dealing with shutter lag (delay which happens between triggering the shutter and when the photograph is actually recorded) with just about any point and shoot you consider buying. And that can be problematic when dealing with sports and action shots. But there are ways to combat it.

1. Prefocus. Hold down the shutter half way to get a prefocus of the image you're shooting. When it changes, prefocus again. This will speed up your camera's performance during picture taking since it won't have to autofocus before it shoots the shot.

2. Use faster SD cards. Yes, there are faster cards and it does make a difference in writing the image file to the card. This is especially key if you're taking multiple or burst images.

3. Fresher batteries. Use alkalines at least. But I recommend using high energy batteries designed for digital photography. Varta is a good brand. They are usually sold in camera shops, are long lasting (because they are sold in small quantities) put out alot of energy.

4. Pan with the action. You can create some pretty cool shots by panning with your shot, focusing on your subject. This will create the effect of your subject in sharp contrast to the blurry background.

6. Stick with 100-400 ISO. Going higher will cause more noise/grain in your shots, particularly in darker settings.

Doing these, particularly prefocusing and panning with the action will cut your shutter lag by as much as 80%.

But in the end, a good DSLR is where you want to be when shooting sports/action shots.