Cross Breeds - What is a good $300-400 photography start up camera for pictures in high motion?

What is a good $300-400 photography start up camera for pictures in high motion?

I have a photography hobby, i am a starter, and i need a camera that is good for taking pictures of horse racing tournaments and cars in motion. My last nikon coolpix L110 has a sports setting but the pictures look very distorted in high motion and the shutter speed was very low so when i pressed the shutter it delayed itself for a couple seconds before it went off and i couldnt press it over and over again, i had to wait a couple seconds before pressing the shutter again, which caused me to sometimes lose great moments because my shutter was too slow. Does anyone know what is a good camera that takes good motion pictures and has a fast shutter speed? I am a Nikon lover, but am open to any recommendations you may have about any other brands. (And i will most likely buy the camera used on Ebay so it will fit my price range) Thanks in advance!

Public Comments

for pictures in high motion you will need a dslr and a fast lens. you can't have either with your current budget. sorry :\
Unfortunately equipment for these purposes are costly. You would need a DSLR camera with a lens. Search for a Canon eos 350D on Ebay if you can. This is an old but decent camera that has been around for 5 years or so, anything newer and it might not fit your budget. But at least on a DSLR you can manually control how fast your shutter opens. Secondly, you will need to try and grab a good lens. Lenses always have an"f:" or "1:" followed a number in their description which is called an aperture, for example: "F:3.5" or "F:1.4" or "1:2.8". Also they have a value in mm, for example 70-300mm or 18-250mm. Your goal would be to get a lens with as low an aperture number as you can find, anywhere bellow f:3.5 would be ideal but hard to find and also this lens must have be upto around 200mm if you want to zoom in on your subject, the higher the "mm number" the further you can zoom in. Next make sure your camera is able to work with this lens: Canon DLSRs can work with either EF or EFS lenses. So for a canon DSLR your ideal lens would be EFS f:2.8 70-300mm Sorry about your budget though, good luck
When I shoot equine events, I use a Nikon D300 or D3 with either my 200-400 f/4 or 70-200 mm f/2.8 If you go to the Nikon website, you will see that spending the money for that kind of setup would flatten your wallet in a major way Your L110 is a fine camera, but P&S cameras all suffer from shutter lag and between that and your not being able to set your cameras shutter speed to 1/500th second or faster manually is a huge problem Here is how you can avoid some of the shutter lag. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/shutter-lag.htm If you can save enough pennies, the Nikon D3100 coupled with the 55-300 mm lens might be an answer, but you still need about a $1,100 budget, $700 for the camera with 18-55 mm lens and another $400 for the 55-300 mm lens
you most likely need a dslr camera, and those can be expensive. I have a nikon d3000 and got it for $500 new, so you might be able to find it used for your price range. It can take continuous pics which would help you alot. you just hold down the button and it takes picture after picture so you dont miss the moments you want capture. you can also adjust the shutter speed to a speed you like. here is one for $400 http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikon-D3000-AF-S-DX-18-55mm-Lens-10-2-Mp-digital-camera-/280620583153?pt=Digital_Cameras&hash=item41564a48f1