A friend of mine and his girlfriend are looking for a P&S camera for mostly sports, etc. Mostly baseball and indoor basketball. Does anyone highly recommend a particular camera? I shoot DSLRs myself most of the time and I'm not really up to knowing what's the best these days in the P&S world. Thanks for any suggestions. They will mostly have the camera in Auto and Sports mode on the dial. They are not really experienced in photography at all. -J.T.
JTMeuret wrote:
A friend of mine and his girlfriend are looking for a P&S camera for mostly sports, etc. Mostly baseball and indoor basketball. Does anyone highly recommend a particular camera? I shoot DSLRs myself most of the time and I'm not really up to knowing what's the best these days in the P&S world. Thanks for any suggestions. They will mostly have the camera in Auto and Sports mode on the dial. They are not really experienced in photography at all. -J.T.
Sorry, their price range is roughly $300 - $500. Thanks.
What are they trying to achieve? Photos they can sell or just a good all-around camera that they will take to the game?
I loved my Panasonic LX3, and replaced it with an LX5. Haven't noticed a lot between the two, but I would recommend either! Put it in manual focus mode and prefocus to wherever, there isn't much lag when taking a picture which might be beneficial for sports...
Here's a few shots I took with my Olympus XZ-1 at the epic triumph of the most excellent New England Patriots over the Denver Broncos, last December in Denver. I'd prefer to be standing on the sidelines with a 1DIV + 70-200/2.8L IS II and 1DsIII + 500/4L IS, but the XZ-1 is what I had with me, in the stands.
Go Pats!
P.S. getting decent P&S images of moving subjects without using a flash requires good light. You generally won't find good light at an indoor BB game, unless the game is televised on a national network, in which case, the lighting might be almost OK.
now show me some indoor high school basketball. not a well lit stadium (sun still out) with a few hundred thousand watts of lightening that reqs sunscreen at 10PM
jcolwell wrote:
Here's a few shots I took with my Olympus XZ-1 at the epic triumph of the most excellent New England Patriots over the Denver Broncos, last December in Denver. I'd prefer to be standing on the sidelines with a 1DIV + 70-200/2.8L IS II and 1DsIII + 500/4L IS, but the XZ-1 is what I had with me, in the stands.
Go Pats!
P.S. getting decent P&S images of moving subjects without using a flash requires good light. You generally won't find good light at an indoor BB game, unless the game is televised on a national network, in which case, the lighting might be almost OK. ...Show more →
Not so much...
trenchmonkey wrote:
Indoor basketball I almost spit out a nice craft beer on THAT one
P.S. getting decent P&S images of moving subjects without using a flash requires good light. You generally won't find good light at an indoor BB game, unless the game is televised on a national network, in which case, the lighting might be almost OK.
and even then you will note in a BB arena the house flash system going off controlled by the resident photographers equipment.
Thanks for the replies everyone! They are just looking for a good all-around camera, but not a DSLR. I have a Coolpix and a Powershot in mind for them, which should be "good enough". And yes, they do want me to take sports photos for them eventually.
I've been pretty happy with my Canon G9, but I've never used it for fast paced indoor stuff. My wife has an S95, it does pretty well for the most part, but I don't know how it'd do with the faster shutter speeds. The biggest issue I have with using a p&s for action is the lag when you press the shutter, I find I miss more shots due to that then blur, noise, or anything else.
Maybe a micro 4/3 camera? You could get into a kit for $300-$400 without a problem, and they could expand it later if they like shooting...
a P&S can be used fairly well if you pre-focus (half press) and you know the subject is going to be at a known place and you can wait for it - like any sport with a course. Even then, you pretty much get a single attempt and is less than ideal. Sports where the subject can be at a random place at a random time, it's going to be highly frustrating to the point of being a non starter. For indoor sports, not great at all.
jcolwell wrote:
Here's a few shots I took with my Olympus XZ-1 at the epic triumph of the most excellent New England Patriots over the Denver Broncos, last December in Denver.
Yep. That's what I said.
nolaguy wrote:
Constructive reply...
Thanks.
I guess your response was supposed to be dripping with sarcasm. Sorry I didn't notice it earlier. Speaking of noticing, did you notice that the original post by J.T. mentioned...
JTMeuret wrote:
Mostly baseball and indoor basketball.
...with baseball first on the list? I assume he wasn't talking about indoor baseball.
I posted some examples of decent photos taken at an outdoor pro game with an inexpensive P&S. Where's your constructive reply?
I almost spit out a nice craft beer on THAT one 
