D200 - Good step up for Motorsport ?
Discussion
Currently using a D70S and Sigma 70-300 APO for primarily motorsport pics.
Really want to make a step up in quality from what Ive been producing.
Going to order a monopod Monday, and am very close to ordering the Nikkor 70-300 ED/VR.
But I keep having nagging thoughts that the body isnt really able to AF that fast and I "need" to upgrade.
Dont like the idea of Movie mode on a still camera, so that puts D90/300 out the way.
Would like to try and stay Nikon, but when you see every man and his dog at a race meet using Canon and white lens', you start asking yourself questions.......
Persuade me otherwise.
Really want to make a step up in quality from what Ive been producing.
Going to order a monopod Monday, and am very close to ordering the Nikkor 70-300 ED/VR.
But I keep having nagging thoughts that the body isnt really able to AF that fast and I "need" to upgrade.
Dont like the idea of Movie mode on a still camera, so that puts D90/300 out the way.
Would like to try and stay Nikon, but when you see every man and his dog at a race meet using Canon and white lens', you start asking yourself questions.......
Persuade me otherwise.
Well don't discount the D300 too soon - that's not a movie camera like the D90.
I jumped from a D70 to a D2x and yes, you'd really notice a difference depending upon which body you move to and if you move on to AF-S lenses.
A D2x and a 70-200mm AF-S (even with a TC 1.4 or 2.0) is like moving to electrickery from steam power I can assure you, compared to D70 and 70-300 screw drive.
Depending upon budget, I'd start from a secondhand D2H, a D2X, a new D300 if you need to get the autofocus speed better on existing glass, or a D80/D300 (miss the D90 if you don't want the gimmick) and then 70-300, 80-200 or 70-200 with a TC1.4 in the bag if you need the length, or even a 300mm f/4 if you only use the long end - all AF-S offerings which are all brilliant, I've handled three of them and own one.
Then again, if after handling a Nikon you find the Canon ergonomically better and easier to navigate and don't have much kit to shift and any great allegiance to Nikon someone will come along in a minute and spend your money on equally good Canon kit, I'm sure!
(But don't let me get you thinking that there isn't an element of technique involved there too!)
I jumped from a D70 to a D2x and yes, you'd really notice a difference depending upon which body you move to and if you move on to AF-S lenses.
A D2x and a 70-200mm AF-S (even with a TC 1.4 or 2.0) is like moving to electrickery from steam power I can assure you, compared to D70 and 70-300 screw drive.
Depending upon budget, I'd start from a secondhand D2H, a D2X, a new D300 if you need to get the autofocus speed better on existing glass, or a D80/D300 (miss the D90 if you don't want the gimmick) and then 70-300, 80-200 or 70-200 with a TC1.4 in the bag if you need the length, or even a 300mm f/4 if you only use the long end - all AF-S offerings which are all brilliant, I've handled three of them and own one.
Then again, if after handling a Nikon you find the Canon ergonomically better and easier to navigate and don't have much kit to shift and any great allegiance to Nikon someone will come along in a minute and spend your money on equally good Canon kit, I'm sure!
(But don't let me get you thinking that there isn't an element of technique involved there too!)
I've been giving my D200 a workout at a couple of rugby matches recently. The only thing you really have to watch is that the autofocus doesn't latch on to the wrong thing (assuming you've got on continuous). Examples here. All taken using the really cheapo Nikkor 70-300. I've used my 18-200 VR on other occasions, and I get better results with VR turned off.
I'd say forget the gimmicky VR lens and spend the extra on a D300...
Edited to add:
D300 has way better AF than the D200 (which was the same as in my old D80). Vast improvement with 3D tracking and more sensors. Used to be the main reason for wasted shots, the AF was the main reason for upgrading. Now the main cause of wasted shots is me leaving the camera with spot metering or exposure compensation or something else left on! There's also a good one stop (possibly more) improvement in noise over the D200 helping your lens. A slow lens with VR is gunna give you long exposures - not what you want for motorsport.
D300 @ 640ISO + monopod + 6fps will trump a D200 with a VR lens!
Then when you can afford it get an AFS/HSM 70-200mm F2.8.
Edited to add:
D300 has way better AF than the D200 (which was the same as in my old D80). Vast improvement with 3D tracking and more sensors. Used to be the main reason for wasted shots, the AF was the main reason for upgrading. Now the main cause of wasted shots is me leaving the camera with spot metering or exposure compensation or something else left on! There's also a good one stop (possibly more) improvement in noise over the D200 helping your lens. A slow lens with VR is gunna give you long exposures - not what you want for motorsport.
D300 @ 640ISO + monopod + 6fps will trump a D200 with a VR lens!
Then when you can afford it get an AFS/HSM 70-200mm F2.8.
Edited by VxDuncan on Sunday 26th April 17:17
Furyous said:
Surely I'd be wasting dollar buying a D300 and using a Siggy lens though ?
I thought percieved wisdom was to buy the best glass you can afford ?
Duncan, why dont you rate the VR ?
Sigma make some cracking lenses...I thought percieved wisdom was to buy the best glass you can afford ?
Duncan, why dont you rate the VR ?
I was in a similar boat to you, D70 and kit lens, plus sigma 70-300. Felt I needed to upgrade. I went mad and got a D200, 28/70 f/2.8, Sigma 10-20 and an 80-400VR. Have never looked back! I'm still not convinced the D300 is worth my money on an upgrade from the D200 but if I were you I'd go for the newer body coming from the D70.
Having used my D200 for a couple of years, they've both reliably shot over 65,000 images each, many of them at motorsport events. I upgraded to a D300 last year when they were still hovering around the £900 mark.
The focusing is more accurate on the D300 but I find it's noisier than the D200. You can also shoot at 100ISO on the D200 where as the D300 starts at 200ISO.
For what you need, a new/mint or secondhand D200 would be spot on.
As far as lenses go, indeed buy the best you can. I paid £1500 for a brand new 80-400 Nikkor VR lense and took it back after one shoot, it just didn't have the sharpness I needed. I bought 300mm f2.8 instead, drastic but I've never looked back - awesome bit of kit.
As a compromise I would recommend a Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 D lens, very sharp and nice to use.
Shot on D200 with 80-200mm f2.8
Shot on D200 with 300mm f2.8
Shot on D300 with 300mm f2.8
The focusing is more accurate on the D300 but I find it's noisier than the D200. You can also shoot at 100ISO on the D200 where as the D300 starts at 200ISO.
For what you need, a new/mint or secondhand D200 would be spot on.
As far as lenses go, indeed buy the best you can. I paid £1500 for a brand new 80-400 Nikkor VR lense and took it back after one shoot, it just didn't have the sharpness I needed. I bought 300mm f2.8 instead, drastic but I've never looked back - awesome bit of kit.
As a compromise I would recommend a Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 D lens, very sharp and nice to use.
Shot on D200 with 80-200mm f2.8 Shot on D200 with 300mm f2.8 Shot on D300 with 300mm f2.8I've used a D70, D200 and D300.
The step from D70 to D200 is vast and worth every penny (especially as it's now apparently 'obsolete'... don't be fooled by that) However to my mind the step from D200 to D300 is far less. I guess the D300 body is twice as much as the D200 but it's not twice as good.
However I don't do motorsport, and I'm sure the D300 tracking AF abilities are better... and an out of cocus shot is no good to anyone...
ETA: As pixelpimp's photos illustrate, a D200 with a good lens works very well!
The step from D70 to D200 is vast and worth every penny (especially as it's now apparently 'obsolete'... don't be fooled by that) However to my mind the step from D200 to D300 is far less. I guess the D300 body is twice as much as the D200 but it's not twice as good.
However I don't do motorsport, and I'm sure the D300 tracking AF abilities are better... and an out of cocus shot is no good to anyone...
ETA: As pixelpimp's photos illustrate, a D200 with a good lens works very well!
Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 27th April 09:36
As I said earlier, I can't vouch for the D200 as I went from D80 to D300, but I'm fairly sure the D80 shares the same AF and sensor as the D200. I find I now miss very few shots through AF issues, and the AF fine tunes is wonderful. But I don't do motorsports.That said, I did manage to get the D80 to track a Eurofighter doing a low fly past (may 100ft!) at high speed during an MOD event on Salisbury plain. Couldn't believe it when I saw the shots, with an old screw drive 80-200 F2.8 D as well.
My grumble about VR lenses is the same as ever - fancy electronics doesn't fix slow (and usually cheap) glass. It's an marketing gimmick. Far better to spend the extra on a faster, maybe secondhand pro lens without VR. Say you have a cheap 70-300mm lens. At 200mm (and roughly F5.6) you're going to need around 1/250s to hand hold it. With VR you could hand hold it down maybe another 3 stops - so 1/30s in the same light. But what's the point? At 1/30s anything moving even slightly at that zoom range will be blurred through motion blur. Now if you'd gone for the two f-stops faster 70-200 F2.8, you'd be up in the 1/1000s in the same light... Much better for freezing action, plus you get teh benefits of better quality glass and build quality to boot.
edited to add: obvious VR does have a place on faster glass, it's just not the magic fix it's made out to be.
My grumble about VR lenses is the same as ever - fancy electronics doesn't fix slow (and usually cheap) glass. It's an marketing gimmick. Far better to spend the extra on a faster, maybe secondhand pro lens without VR. Say you have a cheap 70-300mm lens. At 200mm (and roughly F5.6) you're going to need around 1/250s to hand hold it. With VR you could hand hold it down maybe another 3 stops - so 1/30s in the same light. But what's the point? At 1/30s anything moving even slightly at that zoom range will be blurred through motion blur. Now if you'd gone for the two f-stops faster 70-200 F2.8, you'd be up in the 1/1000s in the same light... Much better for freezing action, plus you get teh benefits of better quality glass and build quality to boot.
edited to add: obvious VR does have a place on faster glass, it's just not the magic fix it's made out to be.
Edited by VxDuncan on Monday 27th April 10:20
VR lenses won't help you freeze motion; fast glass will (because you can get a faster shutter speed).
Having said that, motorsport photos can look a bit odd if the shutter speed is so fast that that the car appears to be parked - hence panning, and hence why you won't always need 1/2000th second to photograph racing cars - motion blur is often desirable to show the speed.
The more money you spend, the better it will be. Infuriating eh?
Having said that, motorsport photos can look a bit odd if the shutter speed is so fast that that the car appears to be parked - hence panning, and hence why you won't always need 1/2000th second to photograph racing cars - motion blur is often desirable to show the speed.
Furyous said:
So, if I went for a D300,would my sigma be the weak link or would I get the pics I want?
There are expensive/good Sigmas and cheap/poor Nikkors. However on balance I think the D300 will show up shortcomings of the Sigma 70-300 that the D70 didn't. It's like hi-fi - you upgrade one bit and suddenly it shows up the rest.Furyous said:
What's the screw drive in reference to? I'm guessing part of the AF?
To focus, elements of the the lens have to move. Screw-drive lenses are driven by a small motor in the camera body - look at the lens mount and you'll see the mechanical connection like a small screw head. By contrast AF-S (Sigma call it HSM; Canon call it USM) lenses have ultrasonic motor in the lens. This makes focusing faster, quieter and uses less power. However, in my experience the speed and accuracy of focusing is also dependent on the camera body - for example, a D200 turns a screw-drive lens faster than a D70 will. It's all part of getting a more capable camera.The more money you spend, the better it will be. Infuriating eh?
Good post simpo, thanks.
What I'm aiming for is quality action pics using around 1/125 and a nice smooth pan. Ice been getting reasonable results, nice background motion blur etc, but the actual car is never as sharp as I want it to be.
Posting from my phone now, but will put up some examples later.
Cheers all, this is interesting.
What I'm aiming for is quality action pics using around 1/125 and a nice smooth pan. Ice been getting reasonable results, nice background motion blur etc, but the actual car is never as sharp as I want it to be.
Posting from my phone now, but will put up some examples later.
Cheers all, this is interesting.
I went from D70 - D80 (due to dropping the former) - D300 and had the same Sigma 70-300 APO Macro f4-4.6 ... lens. On the first two I found it fine (though in hindsight a little soft at the extremes, however on the D300 I was surprised just how soft my images became. I ended up going for the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 just before it went up in price, but while it is a very sharp lens I'm not so sure how good it will be for motorsport as it's auto-focusing is some what slow.
Simpo Two said:
There are expensive/good Sigmas and cheap/poor Nikkors. However on balance I think the D300 will show up shortcomings of the Sigma 70-300 that the D70 didn't. It's like hi-fi - you upgrade one bit and suddenly it shows up the rest.
Re Sigma Vs Nikon lenses - think of it in terms of say comparing the performance of the ford range vs the BMW range - at the lower end the ford is much cheaper, but not as good performance wise, at the expensive end the BMW is probably a bit ahead (well alot actually). The key thing though is there's a massive overlap in the middle and generally the ford will be cheaper for the same performance. Crap analogy but that's the way I see it at least.The D300 might show up the limitations of the lens, but it will also make it far better than it ever was. The AF will improve markedly thanks to increase accuracy and speed of focusing. Chromatic abberations will reduce (purple fringing etc) thanks to the low level processing and sensor optics, and sharpness will improve thanks to AF fine tuning and increased sensor resolution...
Re: panning, unless you have a lens with a paning mode, the VR will always be off anyway, and even if it is on the extra three stops aren't that helpful if you're keeping it in the 1/125 - 1/250s range.
Edited by VxDuncan on Monday 27th April 17:39
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