New member here, wanting opinions on my beginners equipment.

[moacsupreme]

I'm just now starting to really get into photography. The main things I've been taking pictures of so far are cars, usually action shots. This recent weekend, I went to an autocross, and was trying to take pictures with a canon 3.2 mp powershot a310. It really wasn't well suited to the cars in motion. I was just wanting to see which one of my two point and shoot cameras would work better for this. I have an Nikon af3 and a samsung maxima zoom 105. From what I've been reading as far as reviews go, the samsungs are not really liked by many, and has a lot of problems. I have never really had much trouble out of the older nikon, it's always taken pretty good pictures. But I was just wanting to really see if either one of them had any potential whatsoever for taking fairly good pictures. Thank you.

[another view]

Not familiar with a Nikon AF3; is it a film point & shoot? Basically, every piece of equipment has it's limitations. The trick is to know what those limitations are and figure out how to get around them when shooting.

The AF in a point & shoot camera most likely won't keep up with a car race, but try it and see. With most AF cameras (point & shoot or SLR), when you hold the shutter release down halfway, you lock the focus in. A common technique is 'zone focusing' which is basically pre-focusing the camera on an area and then shooting when the car gets to that pre-determined spot.

In the future, you might want something with more manual controls for more options on how you shoot. It's going to be a challenge to use a point & shoot camera with car races but it's good practice and you still should be able to get some decent shots.

[Michael Fanelli]

I'm just now starting to really get into photography. The main things I've been taking pictures of so far are cars, usually action shots. This recent weekend, I went to an autocross, and was trying to take pictures with a canon 3.2 mp powershot a310. It really wasn't well suited to the cars in motion. I was just wanting to see which one of my two point and shoot cameras would work better for this. I have an Nikon af3 and a samsung maxima zoom 105. From what I've been reading as far as reviews go, the samsungs are not really liked by many, and has a lot of problems. I have never really had much trouble out of the older nikon, it's always taken pretty good pictures. But I was just wanting to really see if either one of them had any potential whatsoever for taking fairly good pictures. Thank you.

You'll get excellent results if you learn to pre-focus. Remember, auto racing was being photographed long before AF even existed.

[moacsupreme]

Thanks for the replies. The af3 is an older camera, with no zoom. Whereas the samsung does have zoom. I guess it's just a matter of getting the timing right before snapping the pictures.

[Clemmie]

They all have their limitations. With the Canon, it's 'capture speed' - too much lag time in 'fixing' the image, a common problem with digital at this point.

With the Nikon (which I did a quick lookup on - film P&S, circa 1987) - the limitation is top shutter speed. You'll do best to track with the car's movement as you shoot, letting the background blur.

The Samsung? Well, I have one of those old clunkers too - my camera of LAST resort. Good example of a conglomerate trying to do too many things at once. They should stick with computer chips, I think.....