Camera + lenses

Hello,

 

I am looking at a Nikon D80 or D200.

I will mostly be taking surfing pictures (from the beach) so the lense I believe is most important.

 

Anyone can point me in the right direction?

 

Thanks.

Based on my positive experience with my Canon 100-400, I think Nikon's 80-400 would

serve you well. I don't think you'd want anything shorter, even with the cropped sensor. Off-

shore surfers can be pretty far out there at times.

For shooting surf from the shore the bigger the lens the better. After that it comes down to your budget. I got away with using a Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.4 teleconverter with good results for quite a while (many of the wave and surfing shots on my photo.net page were taken with this setup). From the reviews I have read I am not sure the auto-focus on the 80-400 is great for sports but I have no personal experience with it. This year I got a 200-400 VR f/4 which works great, even with the 1.4 TC but that is quite the pricey lens.

Which spots do you plan on shooting Sylvain?

Mostly the North Carolina Coast, I will be travelling to PR this winter and perhaps central

america in the spring.

I am on a budget, how do you guys feel about 2nd hand equipment?

Should I got for better camera or lens?

Any safe websites you can recommend?

 

Thanks for all the replies.

If given a choice between buying a better camera body or better lenses I'll pick the lens the majority of the time. You can pick up good used equipment from www.keh.com They are located in Atlanta and buy and sell all kinds of stuff.

ditto KEH. I recomend buying the camera new, but a lens can be had used. I bought a cannon FD mount lens (pre 1990's) from KEH and its served me well. I would recomend looking into the older nikon manual focus lenses if you really want to save money; but let it be known manual focus with a digital camera can be tough because the view finder has a low contrast compared to the older cameras designed for manual focus.

I got a great deal on a 300mm AIS f/2.8 in bargain grade condition from KEH. Glass was perfect. It worked for our dinky little waves.

 

Still, I might splurge a bit more for the 400m f/2.8 behemoth (have never shot this lens)and a TC.