What digital SLR for motorcycle racing?

[jason.clark]

hi all,

No sure if this is the correct place,
But this ones for the motorcycle photographers out there?

I'm interested in buying a new digital SLR spending around £300-£500 (The main use will be motorcycle racing).

Any suggestions??

cheers,
J
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[ Maybe a Duke?] <---- Yam R1 (Road) / Yam R6 (Race) <--- GSXR6 <------ GSXF6 <------ TSX50
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[biker-dj]

I should imagine Silver would be the best person to ask, take a look at his Brands and Donnington pics, they are superb. Getting back to your original question though, Nikon, Canon digital SLR are probably the best makes, although you may be restricted with your 500 quid budget, I could be wrong tho'
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[Silver]

(Most) people seem to fall into the Canon or Nikon camp. £500 will get you a Canon EOS 350D with the standard kit 18-55mm lens. That won't be enough reach for taking racing pictures, so if you're on a budget I'd go for the 70-300mm f/4-5.6. It's not a great lens, but it's not bad and you can pick it up for £160 (less on eBay). Slightly over your budget at £670 but it's a competent enough set-up to start taking pictures on (it's what my other half has).

Nikon wise you'd be looking at a D50 / D70. Don't know much about the D50 but I know the D70 is a decent enough camera. Personally though I'd go the Canon route...

Oh, don't forget to budget for memory cards too.

Have a look here for some ideas:
https://www.warehouseexpress.com/

[divuk83]

You may need to spend a little more than that as generally SLR's either comes as just the body ie no lens, or they come with something like an 18-55mm lens that would be useless for motor sport photography. Plus you will need a few quid for a memory card. Worth getting a large card as you wont be able to take many pics otherwise. Its also worth getting a fast card such as a Sandisk Ultra 2 or 3 as when using continuous shooting a cheap slow one may not work as well.

I would say you need at least a 200mm lens for motorsport photgraphy with a DSLR.

As Biker DJ says, I would go for a Nikon or a Cannon, though some of the new Olympus ones look fairly good.

Dave

edit: Silver beat me too it!

[biker-dj]

It's a shame I can only talk about these cameras and not afford one - I'll keep doing the lottery tho' Can't wait till I get my films back from the processors just to see if they came out ok. I did find my Tamron 70-210mm lens a bit restrictive so as DivUK mentioned, if money allows go for 300mm at least. And good luck with getting your new camera
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[divuk83]

A 200mm DSLR lens is equivalent to a 300mm film SLR lens. You may get a away with a 200mm lens depending on how close you can get to the track!

Dave

[Silver]

[divuk83]

[Suzuki]

Alright Jason!

I got myself a Nikon D100 for £550, including two batteries and the 70-300mm Nikor lens.

You can get a D70 from ebay for £375.



(Jon )
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<Simple> it is a big enough hole.. I'll leave it now
Ride: 1999 Suzuki GSXR600 (yellow/black) IRC: Stats - Relationship Map

[jason.clark]

wow thanks guy, priceless info
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[ Maybe a Duke?] <---- Yam R1 (Road) / Yam R6 (Race) <--- GSXR6 <------ GSXF6 <------ TSX50
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[Kickstart]

Hi

Firstly, I would ask if you already have any SLR equipment? No point in throwing away what you already have if the lenses can be used on a dSLR. Canon, Nikon, Sigma and Pentax all build dSLRs that can use their older lenses. The Olympus dSLRs use a totally new lense mount (launched as a new standard, and Panasonic will also be using it shortly) although there is an adaptor available to use the older Olympus lenses on these bodies. Minolta also launched their dSLRs using their older lense mount, but they have just pulled out of the camera market (although Sony are now going to be using that lense mount with a forthcomin dSLR).

Cheapest dSLR at the moment is around £400 new, but you will need a longer lense than the kits generally come with. 200mm is fine for some places, 300mm good in others. In either case decent lenses are not cheap.

Budget on a spare battery and some memory cards. Quite easy to take 1000 pictures in a day.

Personally I bought a 2nd hand Canon D30 for taking pictures on bikes on tracks about 3 years ago. Used it heavily (you can now pick these up fairly cheaply on Ebay, only 3mp but for most uses that is fine and they are far more solidly built than a 350D, but were something stupid like £2200 when new), mainly with a cheap Canon 75-300 USM lense. Still got it and now it is often used by my better half. Now I use a Canon 20D. Lense wise I tend to use my Sigma 70-200 f2.8 (long enough for Cadwell and a few places at Snetterton, fast focusing and not stupidly heavy). Just bought a 120-300 f2.8 Sigma but not really used it yet (and it really is heavy). Also got a Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6 LUIS lense, but not that impressed with it.

I would not be too worried about buying equipment from HK on Ebay. It is where the 20D and several of my lenses came from. Bought them from an Ebayer who refunds any UK duty charged which avoided any nasty surprises. However it depends on what you are buying as sometimes their prices are not that good (and if the price is close I would rather buy for the UK for ease of warrenty and the like).

It might well be a good idea to buy an older 2nd hand dSLR if you can get a decent deal, and then upgrade to something newer when you have more experience and a larger budget.

Jessops used to do internet price matching. I asked on Saturday and they said they no longer do (and I would not pay £400 extra to get what I was interested in from Jessops rather than an established UK supplier on the internet).

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Silver]

Following on from what Keith said, have a look here for some second hand kit. I believe it all comes with 12 months warranty from the shop.

https://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/categoryType.php

[Kickstart]

Hi

Not seen that one before. Good one.

Park Cameras also do a fair amount of 2nd hand stuff. Currently listing a 300D for £229.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[jay12329]

As has been said by others i'd recomend a 350d and the 300mm canon lens as a starting block. You can get some good shots with this set up and gives a good basis for learning all the basics. I started with a 300d and a basic 300mm canon lens, i paid £670 on e-bay for all ths about a year ago.
HTH
J

[jason.clark]

once again thanks to all for the advice,

I'm going to buy a Canon 350 at £500 and buy a lense of ebay.

should I be worried about buying a none canon lense?

i.e on ebay there are a few "Sigma" branded lenses?

like so:
https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sigma-75-300mm-Autofocus-APO-Zoom-lens-for-CANON-EOS_W0QQitemZ7609855819QQcategoryZ4687QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

cheers,
jason.
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[ Maybe a Duke?] <---- Yam R1 (Road) / Yam R6 (Race) <--- GSXR6 <------ GSXF6 <------ TSX50
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[biker-dj]

As far as I am aware Sigma are a good make as are Tamron. There was a bloke selling 350d's on ebay brand new and boxed, body only he seems to have a few of them, the last one went for 405 quid with 15 quid postage. I was very tempted but cash will not allow at the mo
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[Kickstart]

Hi

The Sigma EX lenses are very good. I have several of them and love them. However that one in the add isn't an EX lense, and there are comments on the add about people with dSLRs suffering errors with it.

For reviews of different lense check https://www.fredmiranda.com .

The Canon 75-300 f4-5.6 USM lense is fairly good and not that expensive. Good value for money lense.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[swaffs]

Hmm, seems like most of the bases are covered here.
I'd recommend a 350d and a 75-300mm. for starters.

You'll be surprised what you can achieve with that, but it takes time to learn how to make the most from it.
I'd recommend lots of googling for tips on motorsport photography, theres load of info out there.
Then just goto your nearest track, on a random track day and go play with it.

I managed to get reasonable images with it last year and only after taking it up seriously have decided to upgrade to much better kit. and that was only 4 weeks ago.
20D and 120-300mm f/2.8 and a sturdy monopod.

I've just sold my old 300D kit as well

Good luck and enjoy it. Hope to see you at one of G/Jon's races one day.

Rich Swaffs
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