Buying a Camera for Racing Photography

I bought a NIKON 200 LAST YEAR WITH A FEW LENSES COST ME IN EXCESS OF £2500 but you only get the results by buying a decent camera and having the ability to see a shot thats worth taking re composing a photograph.......I have a NIKON L18 compact too 8000 mp and its brilliant too cost me in Aug 08 £87 well worth it......

I HAVE A CONVENTIONAL SLR [film ] MINOLTA 800 professional camera with all the trimmings, but don't now use it.................
 
You have mis-read my post, but that doesn't surprise me :rolleyes:
The word professional means quite simply 'earning one's profession' at something, a profession now being simply having a job, it seems!

I have no-where, ever, compared myself - or any of us part-time snappers - to those who do it full time, and my post above made precisely that point, if you go back and read it.


Songsheet said:
With the greatest respect, Headstrong, while some of your pictures are quite nice, but if you're classifying yourself as one of the forum professionals, I think you've a long way to go yet and it is perhaps a little galling for those on here who have earned their living from photography for considerably longer to find you putting yourself in their league. Maybe I've misread your post and that wasn't your intention - if so, I apologise profusely.

A metal Press badge is not the definitive criteria for being a good anything - my son has one for a start and wouldn't know one end of a horse from another but he is a member of the Press all the same....
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Headstrong said:
You have mis-read my post, but that doesn't surprise me :rolleyes:
The word professional means quite simply 'earning one's profession' at something, a profession now being simply having a job, it seems!

I have no-where, ever, compared myself - or any of us part-time snappers - to those who do it full time, and my post above made precisely that point, if you go back and read it.
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Headstrong - does the word 'if' mean nothing to you? If we're talking about accuracy and reading posts correctly, then an admonition coming from you really does take some swallowing!

If we follow your accepted definition of a 'professional' as being someone paid to do something, then it was a natural assumption for anyone of us to make (and believe me, I wasn't the only one) to read it to be including yourself in that description, as you yourself say "which is fine for the 'people shots' I'm mainly employed to do" - if you're supplying your photographs for nothing, then presumably you aren't a professional under your definition above.

As to the general use of the word professional, then it is about time we dragged ourselves out of the original mid 19th and 20th century definition of the word when it was used to elevate the newly professional class of doctors, lawyers, accountants etc. It should be used in my opinion for anyone who does their job well, be it a farmer or doctor or roadsweeper.
 
You can have 100 people saying buy a particular camera, but if you are not comfortable with it you will never find using it enjoyable,

Buy what feels right,

The only thing I can add is if you are going way, make sure you buy it at least 4/6 weeks before you go so that you can have a proper play with it & know your way around the camera before you go

Helen
 
I'm sorry Headstrong but I have to agree totally with Songsheet here. You very much came across as classing yourself as a professional photographer with your entire post - for starters, you opened your post by stating "Only those with a metal Press Badge OR permission from the racecourse to represent a press outlet are permitted to take photos" which certainly to me implies that you are a professional with the permissions, since you don't have a metal press badge.

Not only that, you go on to talk about the shots "you're employed to do", as Songsheet says, before saying that down to your years of experience you are able to make the distinction between "good and piss poor images".

I don't see how anyone could take your post in any other way than you making out you are one of the experienced professionals you mention. As Songsheet also says, that doesn't seem especially fair to the more experienced and professional photographers reading this; with the greatest respect I'd also agree that whilst you can take some good pictures, I too personally feel you have a long way to go yet before even thinking of classifying yourself in the same category as the racing professional photographers.
 
Does it really bother either of you whether or not she considers herself to be a professional?

A simple "that's nice dear" would suffice.
 
As Songsheet originally says, it's a bit galling for those on here who have worked so hard to say they are professionals, people I'm close to and count as good friends (SS would count herself the same I'm sure), that's all.
 
Songsheet, SL,

I'm at a loss as to why you both have jumped on HS here?

What Melendez said.
 
I thought we'd both explained?

Would I be jumped on were I to tell everyone I'm a professional jockey? Of course I would. Same difference.
 
Don't know why you can't just raise your eyebrows and move on. Plenty of people say things on here which annoy me with regards to name dropping and exaggerating situations but I just ignore them rather than dragging a thread down.

In other news, I'm going to test that A200 out in an hour so I'll see how it goes. No horses to take pictures of though in the office, well on seconds thoughts...
 
If people want to demonstrate their own pettiness, let them.

What I said was
<< And it's a job which you can only learn by doing, so in a sense you are a 'Pro' the moment someone pays you to go and take pics on a racecourse! - but it's a job where experience really does make all the difference, as we can see in the difference in quality between the work of forum photgraphers who do it for a living, and those who just go out and take a few pics when at the races >>

The first part of my longer post above was addressing the matter of what accreditation to racecourses permits, and who is allowed on courses, as someone had asked.

As for the rest -

How anyone could construe that bit in bold above as anything but an admission that I (and the rest of us such as DG, Suerunner and Arkers) have a long way to go, I'm at a loss to imagine. But a few on here, esp SL, have a compulsion to attack anything certain people say, no matter how mean and foolish it makes them appear.

I've been taking photographs as PART OF my living for many years - since the early 70s in fact; and I have photos in two big professional photo agencies. I think I'm pretty good at framing a shot and my picture editing experience has helped there immeasurably as I pointed out. Technically however I'm pretty useless; but I've before never needed to do anything in the way of moving subjects - I specialised in views, buildings, portraits and flat copy work; so I bought a good camera for those purposes and learned to use it.

So far as RACING PHOTOGRAPHY goes, it takes a great deal of work and experience - and also suitable equipment, which is pretty expensive and which I currently lack - to get to a good professional standard. Horses are rarely still for more than an instant - it's a whole different ball game. Taking average raceourse shots is not however difficult - and there are a lot of people out there doing it. Some get better with work and talent - some remain just jobbing photographers.

I'd like to add that I've met both UG and Tracy (both of whom have been mentioned above) in the course of work - esp UG many times - and both have been entiurely supportive and helpful in every way, and freely given me any advice I've needed, inc via email. They know, and they know I know, that I am a long way behind them, and I've never pretended otherwise - how could I?
 
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Sorry for hijacking slightly GS but along similar lines.....

I have a lovely little Canon 4 megapixel camera which i've had for years but it got dropped on my (tiled) kitchen floor at the weekend (bloody kids:mad:) it still takes pics but to me they seems more blurry and darker so probably the flash has been damaged. What I really want is something with a low megp (around 5 or 6) as my computer hasn't much memory and I have loads of pics stored on it, but most importantly a lithium battery that you can plug in to recharge, as it would otherwise cost me a fortune to keep me in batteries. I just want something small but looking in Asda yesterday it looks like it could be an impossible task.

Anyone any ideas:whistle::confused:
 
Songsheet said:
With the greatest respect, Headstrong, while some of your pictures are quite nice, but if you're classifying yourself as one of the forum professionals, I think you've a long way to go yet and it is perhaps a little galling for those on here who have earned their living from photography for considerably longer to find you putting yourself in their league.
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If that's the case, Songsheet, why don't you leave it to them to point that out?

I think Headstrong's final paragraph makes it clear that she doesn't consider herself in the same league as those who make a living from photographing horses for a living - but you seem to have conveniantly chosen to ignore that, and yet another pointless, unhelpful spat has partially hijacked an otherwise informative thread.

Stick to the topic - simple as that really.
 
Just to clarify - I do work on racecourses currently for a large part of my living, as a few on here well know - but it's mainly for a website dedicated to the 'social side of racing' so my work is very people/personality oritented. I also take pics at Great Leighs for the course, also on the people/social side in the main building and round and about, and to some extent in the PR. My photos have appeared in every single racecard since the 2nd meeting and are also on their website. Obviously I do get Press Passes for all that - I do a lot of writing for the 'social' website too.

Since I'm often around the horses too esp in the PR, I do take pics of them there - mainly for the enjoyment of FF members as I put a few up on there, and for friends in the owning/training/riding scene; but also to keep a 'bank' for myself which I may exploit at some point when I'm finacially able to do so (I keep the best ones for that!)

I don't do any serious track work - sometimes just the shot of the main race winner passing the post - and I am in no way qualified to do so, as I'd be the first to admit! But I'm quite good with the people - which some racecourse photographers aren't; and covereing that side of things is a different skill (imo)
 
trackside528 said:
If that's the case, Songsheet, why don't you leave it to them to point that out?

I think Headstrong's final paragraph makes it clear that she doesn't consider herself in the same league as those who make a living from photographing horses for a living - but you seem to have conveniantly chosen to ignore that, and yet another pointless, unhelpful spat has partially hijacked an otherwise informative thread.

Stick to the topic - simple as that really.
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I don't think her final paragraph made it clear at all, Trackside, hence my post - there was nothing convenient about it.
 
Headstrong wrote:

"And it's a job which you can only learn by doing, so in a sense you are a 'Pro' the moment someone pays you to go and take pics on a racecourse! - but it's a job where experience really does make all the difference, as we can see in the difference in quality between the work of forum photgraphers who do it for a living, and those who just go out and take a few pics when at the races"

What any "professional" (as an aside you have conveniantly introduced your own subjective definition of the word professional after your initial post) photographers would find so "galling" about that is absolutely beyond me. Anyway, I have not seen any comment on it from any of our professional photographers so it is irrelevant anyway.

Any more of the personal nonsense will be treated as spam (as it is spamming an otherwise legitimate thread) and will be deleted.
 
Maybe the professional photographers have been out doing just that and have not had an opportunity to comment yet or had that maybe escaped your notice?
 
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