cameras and whatnot

Seen as im broken and im gonna miss some races, I've always fancied trying my hand at a bit of photography of the auld bikes. I could look at deadly bike pics all day so it would be cool to try and make some of my own. I've only got a point and shoot camera and it just isn't fast enough for biking pics. I don't have the cash for a full on slr so was looking at a few in between cameras. Was checking out this one here on pixmania
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/1807579...x-s2000hd.html
it seems pretty good value and has features of cameras twice the cash. I know theres a few photography people who frequent this forum so im looking for a few pointers on what to get or if I should go ahead and get this one.

It's not the features, but the speed it can autofocus and the amount of light it lets in.
You need a DSLR with a good lens.
Do you want to borrow mine at the weekend? I want to race if i can, so It's sitting at home. It'll give you a feel for things.....

won't be able to take pics this weekend as ill be busy at the finish line but thanks for the offer

i have one of those inbetween cameras. theyre great. i have a panasonic lumix z- something. good for quick shooting, you can adjust everything(like shuter speed etc.)

yeah the finepix has full adjustment and the shutterspeed seems pretty quick. It also doubles as a HD video camera which would be cool option to have.

Al , Thats a savage camera for the money with the controlability of a much more expensive slr. Snap it up.
There was a fella away with us in November with the same camera and he was getting some really nice shots with it ranging from macro to long-ish distance zoom shots.

You have all the manual override features on it of an slr so will be great for learning techniques and deciding if you have an eye for it or not. As the fat fecker says though it will be a tad slower than a decent slr but you get what you pay for. And ithink i read that it has manual focus too if the auto is a bit slow but not so sure about that on a digital display.

Looks like a bargain.

The reason why its cheap (possibly ) is because it runs on aa batteries not li-ion. With aa's youll be changing batteries frequently and it becomes a pain.So be warned ;D

yeah i spotted that, have seen something similar that takes a li-ion battery so might go for that.

That is a cheap camera for what it offers. Id agree about the batteries but one way around it is to use high volume rechargeables, they will last a good bit longer than disposable aa's.
In the past I had a couple of fuji camera's and one problem I found was the time it took for the camera to save an image (of course you cant shoot while this is going on) and if action pics are what you are going for it can be a bit frustrating.
A really excellent bridge camera is the Panasonic FZ50 though can be hard to find and is 3 times the cost of that fuji.
Finally that fuji dosnt seem to have a threaded lens tube so you cant attach a filter to protect the lens etc...
Still so little money....

Here's a good website from Guernsey which are tax free on some items, My sister worked for a photographer who used them alot, Maybe you can beat the rip off republic from here =
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=777

Hi Al, I have used other Finepix Bridge cameras - S9500, S9600, S100 which have the same internals as the one you're looking at. Here's my input: With the Finepix, the autofocus time and framerate are a bit slow for fast-action photography. If you want to take serious action shots (i.e. photos of moving stuff) you need a DSLR. Greg.