more fps needed???

I currently own a D80 and have been recently shooting baseball, softball and

tennis. With the 3fps of the D80, I have very few shots with the composition I

like and the ball in the frame.

 

So I was thinking of getting a D200 or a D2HS. I actually can get the D2HS with

20K actuations for $1500.

 

I do lose quite a bit of cropping with the D2HS compared to the D200 but the

extra 3 fps and better focusing module seems to be VERY attractive.

 

I will be posting a link to some pictures later on.

 

Advice/opinions?

 

Thanks in advance.

If it were me (and back when I was shooting extreme sports, it was me), I would work harder on timing a single shot to be the one that you want. Rather than trying to shoot a burst of 3 and hoping to catch it. You will be a lot more successful that way.

I agree that I need to practice my timing skills. I am able to capture that moment, the look in the atheletes face, batter sliding to home plate etc. etc. But what I am after is say the batter hitting the ball, with the ball in the frame or the tennis player strking the ball.

 

For some of these I position myself to be in the path of the ball so I can get the ball in there as well. I really need to be in my home computer so I can post a sample.

I have both get the d2hs, technique is all so important but you'll love the fps of the d2hs it's just cool to know you can shoot that fast when you need to.

Practice on your timing as said above. I recently bought a Canon 1D (8fps). But I bought it

for the autofocus. I was shooting with a 20D and 30D. The aufocusing of the 1D just blows

them out of the water in my opinion. 8 fps is sure nice to have but if I had to, I could still

capture the action using my other bodies. If you can afford to spend the money, get another

body. This way you have better AF and the higher FPS plus you will have a back up camera!

Remember that even with 8 fps, at say 1/1000 of a second shutter speed, you are exposing the sensor only 8/1000 of a second, leaving 992/1000 that you are not. So fps isn't a magic bullet.

...or to put it another way, a pitch thrown at 90mph is travelling at 132 ft/sec, or 16.5 ft between frames at 8fps - and you are out of control of shot timing as soon as you start your burst of shots. In short, take lessons from Billy Bonds and time your shot - otherwise you'll strike out real fast.

Richard and Mark make illustrate my point exactly.

Timing is everything and you need to practice. The real differences to me are in noise and AF. The D2H and presumably the Hs have horrible high ISO noise characteristics, the D200 beats my D2H to death. As for AF I'm happier with the D200 as well though I know the D2's are supposed to be better. 8fps or 5fps, not enough difference to matter. If I have to pick just one and some days I do, it would be the D200.

 

Rick H.

I certainly understand Mark and Richard's points as to capturing the ball in the shot. For the moment I will work on my timing and save the cash.

 

Thanks for the responses.

Rick the D2hs handles noise much better than the earlier d2h I can get just as good from the d2h as I can from my d200's ok I know the mp difference but long glass and tight shooting eliminates cropping.

 

Shooting action sports you can't beat the d2hs and x in the nikon line up (hopefully you can soon d3whatever)purley because of the focus cam which leaves the d200 for dead. The reason I bought a couple of d200's was to use them for team shots and portraits as I wanted to keep the frame rates lower on the d2x and they do a great job in that regard but not as good shooting action.

 

$1500 is a pretty nice price for a D2Hs with that milage on it, YES timing and technique is everything but better AF and Frame rate doesn't hurt.

 

Jon email me if you decide not to grab it, if shipping is not too expensive I might get it.

 

Regard

 

Mark

I have to echo what Mark Newcombe says. If you're going to get a different body for the purpose of shooting sports, definitely take the D2Hs over the D200. Since you already have a D80, I don't really see any advantage to moving to the D200... at least not for sports shooting.

 

Richard, Josh and Mark U also hit it on the head. A better sports camera doesn't mean you'll get better photos. Camera shake and poor timing only means you'll get an extra 5 crappy shots per second w/ the D2Hs.

John - sure, practice will help. There's no substitute for good technique combined with an understanding of the sport you're shooting. Both of which will allow you to better anticipate when and where the action will take place.

 

However, I used to shoot with a D100. It was a great camera but, as you're finding out, 3fps just doesn't cut it. To give yourself the best chance at capturing the shots you want and increasing your "keeper" percentage, 8fps is the way to go.

 

If you can pick up a D2Hs for $1500 shekels, do it.

Mark it's good to know the S cameras are better because the D2H is abysmal above ISO 800. I started shooting a D200 instead a couple of months ago at high school and college basketball games and the improvement was immediate. I'll still go with the D2H in daytime events, sports or news because let's face it, it's a rocket ship but otherwise its the 200 or a D1X which also does a better job.

 

Rick H.

Here's the link for the tennis game that I recently shot

 

http://jcruz.smugmug.com/gallery/2517542

And some softball pics:

 

http://jcruz.smugmug.com/gallery/2590544

 

I really do need to practice the timing as I got 40 keepers out of 500. Oh and a critique would be nice as well.

 

Thank you.

You can't assume that the increase in frame speed is going to lead to a direct increase in keeper rate. Your number of keepers will increase, but so will the number of images you must incorporate into your workflow. Say you go from 40/500 to 130/1500. That's a lot more images to store, process, etc. Additionally, quite a lot of those keepers will be very similar to others (since they will have been taken split seconds apart).

 

More images aren't necessarily a bad thing, they just have issues of their own to overcome.

 

Keep shooting!

One technique tip when shooting baseball/softball: ensure consistent shutter lag by using manual exposure settings and manual focus. It can be harder to do with tennis, because you'll probably need AF.

Mark,

 

What do you mean by "consistent shutter lag"?

If the camera is having to make calculations of exposure and drive the autofocus system, then you are introducing random delay between shutter press and actual shutter firing (particularly when using AF, where the time taken to focus the lens can vary greatly). By preventing the camera from doing these things for itself you will ensure that the delay will be confined to the time taken to raise the mirror, and it will also be minimised. This is actually one area where a 50 year old all mechanical Leica rangefinder could outgun your DSLR - since it has no mirror to raise, the shutter is triggered almost instantaneously.

I shot a lot of cricket last Summer. Same principle as for Baseball I would imagine. I got fed up with trying to get the ball in shot. In the end I had my cam on a monopod, prefocused on the batsman, then looked over the top of my cam to watch the bowler bowl and clicked when I could see the ball would be arriving. Sounds strange but it made a big difference to the quality of shot I was able to get.

I am guessing the nikon d2xs is not being mentioned because it is in a different price bracket? My understanding is that the d2xs is nikons state of the art camera, and this will give best results for what you are after.

I have just posted a bunch of surfing photos on my website at liveXsport.com. All of these were taken by timing single shots. I am only getting into sport photography and find this gives superior results over shooting in bursts.

Hi Grant,

 

I like the d2x but not the hsc maybe the s is better being grey'd out but mine are not coming off lease for a little while.

 

I preffer shoting sports with the d2h because I can get 8fps in the full finder I don't always shoot bursts but I do when I'm trying to get a run most of my stuff is preordered so I rarely shot on spec these days and the orders dictate the method.

 

I doubt anyone here thinks that machine gun shooting is the only way (or even best) way to go but its great to be able to do it when wanted or required.

hi Mark,

I weighed in on the discussion to gain some further knowledge, and your reply has me thinking. Have been using a nikon d200 myself, and while it is good in many ways, have had mixed sucess at shooting in bursts. Will be trying a few techniques to improve on this.

5 sharp images in 1 sec will be good enough for me, but 5 (or 8) non-sharp images is annoying.

The high speed cropping(hsc) as part of shooting 8fps on the d2xs sounds good on paper and it says it results in a picture angle compared to a 35mm lens with double the focal length. I look forward to someday trying the d2xs at 8fps, and comparing it to the 8fps of the d2hs.

I shoot indoor volleyball. Thousands and thousands of frames per year. It's all rapid action, high shutter speed (1/800th+), high ISO (1600-3200), high frame rate shooting. It's also all indoor which brings it's own issues with available light as no flash is allowed.

 

I have shot the D70, D2H and D2X. Timing your shots is critical, but having the higher frame rate will certainly help. Depending on what ISO you are shooting, you will not be getting the full frame rate as advertised. File size increases with higher ISO and frame rates drop as the AF system deals with lower levels of light.

 

If you need low light IMAGE performance to get higher shutter speeds (and higher frame rates) then I recommend the Canon Mark IIn. After shooting Nikons for 3 years(1 year D70, 2 years D2H, 4 months D2X) the low light image quality of the Canon is night and day compared to the Nikon (1 year Mark IIn). Better low light performance = higher ISO useability, faster shutter speeds and higher frame rates.

 

The Canon AF system is not as good as the Nikon in low-light situations. If you are shooting baseball where you have better lighting this is not going to be an issue. For indoor, the Nikon AF works better at lower light levels. Unfortunately, the Nikon image quality at high ISO's is terrible compared to the Canon, which makes many of the in-focus Nikon shots less than optimal for prints.

 

For me, it appears that salvation is around the corner. I hope that the recently announced Canon Mark 3 will meld the low-light AF performance of Nikon with the high ISO image quality of the Canon.

 

In a nutshell, get the higher frame rate camera with the better shutter release - you will NEVER regret it!