In article .com,
"Ralph" wrote:

But, my Kodak was pretty slow for motorcycle racing. And the button had
to be depressed for about 2 sec's so the camera could focus, prior to
taking the shot. This is not a desirable feature for any kind of fast
sports photography.

I am ready to move up to a better camera. I have done a lot of reading
on forums. I visited a camera store and compared some Digital SLR's.
I think I like the Nikon.

I see some pretty attractive packages on ebay, such as:

Item No 7624038643 includes Camera and 2 lenses:
Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens, and
Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens
extra EN-EL3 Li-ion Battery Pack
Nikon SLR System Case
USB 2.0 High Speed SecureDigital™ Card Reader
buy it now price is $789.

This would be good. You'll love it.

The D50 is absolutely fine. I have the D70s, which has only one
advantage over the D50 in this situation: 3 frames per second instead of
2.5. But that's a minor difference compared to the Kodak you're coming
from.

What the D50 wll give you, apart from speed of focus and shooting is:

- high quality live optical viewfinder

- zoom as fast or slow as yhou can turn the ring on the lens

- much geater sensitivity (ISO). You can crank it up to ISO 800 or more
so that the camera needs less light to take the photo, so you can use
faster shutter speeds in dimmer light to freeze the action, and still
get a less noisy picture than the Kodak

- more control over depth of field, so you can focus on the motorcyle
and have the background nicely blurred (or not, if you choose)


If this is what you can spend then go for it! If you can get the
70-300mm lens instead then that is by most accounts a slightly better
lens (while still being inexpensive) and with quite a bit more "reach".

I haven't shot motorcycle racing with my D70 yet, but in January I took
photos at the NZ Gliding Grand Prix, using the cheap (US$110 - US$140)
70-300 lens.

http://flickr.com/photos/brucehoult/...7594079545291/

A lot of these gliders were doing 150 - 190 mph just in front of me e.g.:

http://flickr.com/photos/brucehoult/110784982
http://flickr.com/photos/brucehoult/110782473


You can see the effect of much shallower depth of field than you'll be
used to getting, making the subjects stand out from the background, in
photos such as these:

http://flickr.com/photos/brucehoult/110782813
http://flickr.com/photos/brucehoult/110782523
http://flickr.com/photos/brucehoult/110783844
http://flickr.com/photos/brucehoult/110785662

Good luck!

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------