Sports dslr? Auto-focusing in motorsport?
I've been searching for a dslr for quite a while now but only recently thought about a career in Motorsport/sports, so need to know a few things about cameras interms of sports. The cameras in question are nikon d3100, nikon d5100, canon 600d and maybe canon 60d (if i can find a cheap used one)
I actually have a few question:
how does focusing actually work in sports, and which has the best cross-type focus points?
600d has f2.8 sensitivity on its one cross-type point, what does that do?
Which is the best interms of focusing, which is fastest and most accurate?
with my budget of around £500 for the body, what do you think i should get, bare in mind that i've been working with film for almost 4 years and definitely know more than just the basics of photography. Thank you!
Added (1). Also which lenses are the best canon or nikon as a whole? Bit of a blunt question but would like to know your opinions!
Wutttt? -.^
Never use auto focus for motorsport, unless you know what you are doing…
None of the cameras you mentioned are going to have suitable auto focus for sports photography.
The cameras that have the 45 point cross type AF systems are better suited for sports, but they cost $4, 000 to $8000.
It sounds like you are on a budget, so I suggest not using auto focus at all. Instead prefocus on a point manually, and try to anticipate when your subject will be in that point before taking the photo.
I think any of the cameras you are looking at will be suitable if you are using the manual focus.
You would be hard pressed to tell the difference in the lenses between Canon and Nikon.
On the whole I would say you should forget the D3100, D5100, 600D and 60D. You will still need autofocus and very good autofocus (I shall explain below). For your £500 budget the best camera is probably the Canon 1D markII. The 1D mark II is old, and in many ways the technology isn't state of the art, but the AF system is still professional grade, as is it's drive speed.
The 1D mkII has a 45 point AF system (7 cross types sensors which work at f2.8 or faster - the same as all other cameras), plus it when one or two AF points are selected it activates surrounding points as assist (passive) points. At full speed the 1D mkII can shoot at 8.5FPS, onto both CF and SD cards. Oh and it's built like a tank. Even with all the technological advances, the 1D-series' autofocus systems are still superior to lower level cameras.
As to lenses, start with something like the 300mm f4L IS, or 400mm f5.6L (on a monopod). These lenses have really fast AF, although can't take advantage of cross type sensors.
You should be aware with motorsports that there are racing lines, and therefore the cars should be at the same place every single lap. You simply prefocus at the apex of the corner and the cars will naturally be in focus. This doesn't mean that AF is useless, quite the opposite, as you will find that it's quite a pleasing effect to pan with the movement of the cars, in slow and medium speed turns.
However to do panning shots you need to be looking at lenses in the order of 300mm and 400mm prime lenses, or 200-400mm f4, all with rear focusing ring-type AF motors, you then attach the lens to a top end camera, either a Canon 1D-series or 5D mark III or a Nikon D3/D4 series, because of the very fast and intelligent tracking autofocus sensors, which will be super sensitive thanks to the use of f2.8 lenses. Likewise for other race type sports you can use the same techniques, obviously it all happens at a lower speed, which means there's less demand on your equipment.
For ball sports, will find autofocus is much more useful, this is because these games while being predictable to a certain extent, there's an element of trickery and skill involved. For example photographing a football (soccer match), look at how Lionel Messi can outsmart 5 or 6 other world class professional players, so he's probably likely to catch out photographers too, one dummy move and you're pointing the camera the wrong way, so you need a fast camera to catch up.
If you want to shoot motorsports professionally you need a much better camera than you mentioned. You need to consider cameras like the Nikon D3s used which is probably the best sports body you can find save the D4 which wil be out in a week or so. Since the D4 is coming out many photographers like myself will be selling our D3s in the coming weeks. It's not a cheap body used but it will do the job. Now you need to get lenses too which are not cheap. Realistically, if you want to wok professionally, especially in sports photography, you need really good gear. You simply can't compete with the people standing next to you shooting top of the line cameras. Sports photography is one area where the camera and lenses make a huge difference. Be ready to drop US$6, 000- $10, 000