Need help with a Tricky Shot

Hello all,

I am new to photography and I have a physics project where I need to take some tricky photos. My friend suggested I start with either a D300 or D200. I have purchased both cameras (used, as I am on a very limited budget) and now I'm ready to get started. I have an F-type lens, a NK3518U to share between both cameras.

Ok, so my challenge is I have to take a picture of a moving target at between 10 and 60 mph, at a distance between 35 and 75 feet. The target is an B&W OLED display that has characters approx. 3 inches tall and I need them to be in focus every time. Can anyone help me set the basic settings so I can get started. I would love to be able to use a general AF setting, but I've been trying various configurations between both cameras and I'm not having much luck. I have been successful with manual focusing for about 60% of my shots. If I have to use a manual focus setting I need to know how to fix the focus so that vibrations will not knock the lens out of focus over multiple shots.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

well as a physics major,, you should calculate that all out, focal length, shutter speed,

but consistancy is going to be how rigid/tracked are you moving, and the precision of your shutter timing. keeping the film/sensor plane tracking EXACTLY the same every time. dial that in, and you will get perfect shots every time assuming you get the shutter fast enough for the slight vibrations.

If you cannot control the vibrations, then you might never get perfect shots every time depending on the occurance of the random vibration in relation to the shutter snap.

controlled experiments are just that... controlled.

Any baseline settings that you think could help? Or AF settings?

You could turn the auto-focus to the "OFF" position, pre-focus to where you want to take the picture and be alert. Use high speed continuous shots and you should get your shot.

Unless you want to take multiple pictures from 75 to 35 feet. That would command another auto-focus setting all together. I'm not too familiar with the setting you would then need, but if you have a look in the user's manual, it should be explained. Maybe someone that does more sports photography than me could share their focusing settings when shooting a subject which distance is continuously changing.

Best of luck. Oh, I'd start with the D300 since it has (I think) a faster fps rate.

Since depth of field seems to be your problem... I think starting with that lens stopped down to its highest setting in Aperture Priority mode, f22, would be my first setting, then add as much light as needed to get the shot... sounds like you don't want any bokeh

I think the D300 has better AF system....Have you tried AF-C Auto Focus Constant and shoot in bursts...

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will try some of these settings and let you know how they work. Again thanks.