Help me buy new camera(s) for work

[chanaleh]

Oh, help, my shutterbug friends.

My workplace (a K-12 private school) needs me to buy two things:

(1) A starter DSLR camera that will be fast enough to capture action shots. We use crappy point-and-shoot digital ones on a daily basis, but you just can't photograph small children adequately with them. The number of priceless shots I've missed over this year is killing me.

(2) A mid-range camcorder, because the Canon FS200 that I've been using for 3+ years? I just DROPPED ON ITS HEAD and bustimacated. So, um, might as well upgrade. Do I automatically go HD? What can I get for spending, say, $600 as opposed to $300?

So, hivemind, the point is: what should I buy? I have money in my budget to invest in this equipment, but I am kind of at a loss.

Comments

[coraline]

for the SLR, i highly recommend the rebel T1i or T2i (I don't think there's enough difference between them to make the price difference worthwhile -- i have the T1i and decided not to upgrade). the kit lens it comes with is very good, and worthwhile.
it's small and light, but large enough to not cramp my hands, and i love the user interface. it also does very well in low light, which might be relevant if you're shooting inside.


i know eric bought a nice camcorder recently but i don't have the details, hopefully he'll chime in :)

Seconding This

[dhs.livejournal.com]

I have a first-generation Canon Digital Rebel and I was happy with it for quite a long time. I expect that if you buy a current Rebel, your school will be happy with it for a similar length of time.

(My Rebel is now obsolete. It still works just as well as it ever did, but it takes too long to write an image to storage and newer cameras do better in low light. One day, when I have money again, I'll upgrade to a new Canon DSLR.)

[gingicat]

I think that's what we have at work as well. I am very fond of my Nikon D3100 that is around the same price.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

My standard advice to anyone looking to buy a digital camera is check out the reviews at http://www.imaging-resource.com/ They have lots of good reviews (sometimes you can print the out and use them as a manual for your camera). They also have a good recommendation wizard.

Another good site is http://dpreview.com/, which has good user forums (frequently with lots of sample pictures uploaded by users).

For taking pictures of kids, some cameras have a "smile detector" and a "blink detector" (they'll take a picture when someone smiles and they'll warn you afterwards if it thinks that someone blinked). Another feature that might be useful when taking pictures of kids (or anything else that moves) is a camera that will take multiple pictures while you hold the shutter button.

Depending upon the nature of the movies you need to shoot, you might be able to use your digital camera to take HD movies (my little pocket camera takes nice HD (720P) videos in a format that is ready to be uploaded to Youtube).

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

To re-think what I said about using a digital camera to take movies, is that if you're likely to want to have one person record an event, and another person take photos of the event, you'll still need two cameras (though it might be useful to have a pair of identical cameras so you can share accessories, and training is simpler).

[c1.livejournal.com]

+1 on the Canon Rebel.

Canon has found a problem with the imaging sensor of their Digital Elph 410 point and shoot cameras. This is a camera that came out in about 2004 and was discontinued about a year later.
They publicly said "my bad", and surprised the world by saying "if your camera is affected, repair and all shipping is on us. Period." Mine made the roundtrip to/from the mother-ship within about 2 weeks.

So that's just one reason why I hold Canon in high regard.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Any DSLR you get will be good at capturing action shots in bright light. Any one. The big names in DSLRs are Canon and Nikon, and the conventional wisdom is that the only thing that really makes a difference between them is which camera makes more sense when you're holding it in your hands.

I'm very fond of http://kenrockwell.com/ for camera reviews. I think he's a pretty straight talker when it comes down to it. The last several camera and lens purchases I've made have been drawn from his recommendations, and I haven't been disappointed.

Really what I'd suggest is to borrow someone's camera and play with it while they explain what it can do. Or stop by a camera shop and ask to try out some different models. Do that a few times and figure out which one has a better user interface for you. The Canon Rebel line is pretty tried and true and you won't go wrong with it. Personally, I love my Nikon D50 and D7000 to death, and the Nikon D3100 is supposed to be one of the best bang for the buck you can get right now.

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

From my limited experiences with the Canon Rebels (AKA the EOS 500D and 550D), they're good cameras, and well-priced. As a Nikon guy I'd also plug the Nikon D5100 which is pretty nice and occupies a comparable niche in the product line (I think).

That said, let me put in a plug for the many DSLRs that can do an admirable job as a camcorder so you only have to carry one thing to do both jobs. The Canon EOS 5D Mk II is sufficiently awesome that it has been used to shoot an episode of House ("Help Me," the S6 finale). Nikon has a number of offerings which also do HD video, starting If you were planning on budgeting $600 for a camera and $600 for a camcorder, I strongly encourage you to consider spending $1200 to get something that can do both jobs for you.

I'd be happy to loan you my D90 for a few days if you want to try using it for shooting video to see what you think of the results and the experience.

[skreeky]

DSLR camera that will be fast enough to capture action shots

I love my Canon Rebel to bits, but I disbelieve the premise here. There is no such thing as a camera that is "faster" than another camera. If you have insufficient light on your subject (generally, anything indoors), no camera on earth will get you a sharp stop-motion image. A "faster lens" will allow you to go a few shutter speeds faster due to lower F-stops available, but you lose depth of field and unless you are exceptionally talented, experienced, and lucky, you will likely be plain old ordinary out-of-focus instead of motion blurred. And really fast lenses cost $$$$$ separately from the camera body, which is what you are thinking of.

I assume you are talking about poorly lit (indoor or night) subjects, since pretty much anything can get stop-motion in bright sun. What you ought to be looking at there is how to get more light on the subject. Flashes have their place, but again, that depends on what you are shooting. Basketball? Flash isn't going to help.

What spending $$$ on a camera body usually gets you is this: up to a certain point, you are paying for a bigger/better chip. After that, you are paying for features you don't need. However, the chip has almost nothing to do with whether you can stop action.

[gingicat]

This.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Welll... okay, maybe it's not the speed of the camera per se, but all I know is, on our little Nikon Coolpixes, full seconds can go by between pushing the button and capturing the shot -- and when I'm trying to catch particular facial expressions and stuff, that's just not adequate.

[skreeky]

That is true - I misunderstood the problem. I thought you were referring to losing shots due to motion blur. If the problem is delay between pressing the button and the photo being taken, then you just want to read reviews like crazy before purchasing, and preferably try one out for yourself in a store first.

[gingicat]

Aside from what I said above, we have several Flip cameras at work and they do us pretty well. You can see our videos here:
http://www.jgateways.org/videos.html