Time For Some Action

I recently found myself on the ski hill with a digital camera that was not capable of doing what I wanted it to do. As my sister flew over my head I had some difficulty capturing the picture because the camera had significant shutter lag and did not have the potential to shoot a wide angle shot. I ended up getting the picture, but it made me think about the more important elements in sports photography - specifically skiing.

I did some research in order to hunt down an inexpensive camera that was capable of taking quick, wide angle shots and I came up with a few options. An SLR camera is obviously the best but I have no desire to carry that around when I'm out skiing.

In the compact point and shoot universe, there are relatively few cameras that have a wide angle lens. I found three good candidates.

1) Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX30 (~$300 US)
2) Canon SD800 (~$350 US)
3) Ricoh R5/R6 ($~350 US)

The Panasonic would be my first choice based on size, price and most importantly shutter lag. It is only 22mm thick and has an unlimited continuous shooting mode (hold the shutter down and take pics at 3 frames per second until you use up your memory), almost non-existent shutter lag and an image stabilized Leica lens.

The Canon is a well respected camera but is more expensive, has slightly more shutter lag and shoots only 1.7 frames per second. The Ricoh is said to have a fair bit of picture "noise" but has a 7.1x zoom in a small camera, if that's something that would interest you. Incidentally, the zoom of the Panasonic can be increased to 5.3x in 3 megapixel mode.

I think the Panasonic is a great camera to slip into your pocket and take anywhere for any kind of picture; even that elusive action shot.