Help with camera choice

[philmer]

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.

Under $5,000 with a very good zoom telephoto.

Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you?
Doesn't matter

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?
8-17 mp

* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x, Other - Specify)
I will need a powerful and fast telephoto.

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)
9-10

Do you care for manual controls?
yes

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
Sports photography. Day and Night.
* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?
no

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?
Yes
Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?
Like Canon and Fujifilm.

Are there particular models you already have in mind?
EOS 1D Mark II N, EOS 5D, EOS 20D, EOS Rebel XT, Nikon 2DX

(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)
Nice but not critical

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[Rex914]

Here are a couple setups, now that you mention day AND night. Given your budget, $5000 blocks out the D2X and the 1D Mark II N since that leaves you with a $0 and $1000 lens budget respectively. And I'd probably avoid the 5D as $1700 for a lens isn't a lot for your purposes. If you want a pro body, by a used pro body instead. These go for around $1500-$2000 depending on the make and the usage.

20D + Battery Grip + 70-200 IS + 300/4 IS = $4000 - $585 MIR = $3415

20D + Battery Grip + Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 = $3400 - $100 MIR = $3300

20D + Battery Grip + Canon 300 f/2.8 IS = $5200 - $100 MIR = $5100 (barely over, but this will do the trick)
350D + Battery Grip + Canon 300 f/2.8 IS = $4700 - $75 MIR = $4625 (OK, so I cheated a little to get this in :p. You could add in a 200mm f/2.8 lens for a net cost of $525)

D200 + Battery Grip + Nikon 70-200 VR + 300 f/4 = $4500 - $250 MIR = $4250

D200 + Battery Grip + Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 = $3800

Assumptions - 20D + grip = $1400, D200 + Grip = $1900

That's a small sampling of possibilities. Fast (or even f/4) 400mm lenses are pretty much out of budget. The three I've bolded are the better choices. If you need a teleconverter, add $200 for a Sigma lens or $300 for a Canon lens.

[philmer]

Thanks Rex for the suggestions. I was reading about the Sigma 120 -300mm f2.8 just before opening your reply. Sounds like a good possibility. But I am thinking I need to increase my budget. I know you keep pointing me to the EOS 20D, but I don't think I'd like the 1.8" LCD with its low pixel resolution, and I am concerned I may need a higher megapixel rating than 8. I want to be able to drop the photos into digital video and ultimately burn DVD's. Do you have an opinion on the minimum megapixel needed for clear, high quality shots going into a video? I've been disappointed with how 5 mp pictures turned out in video.

If I doubled my budget to $10k, and wanted a camera body with a 2" - 2.5" LCD with 200,000 pixels minimum, and a 12 megapixel image, what would you recomend?

Thanks for the direction,

Philmer

[Rex914]

If you doubled your budget, I would recommend getting a 1D Mark II N which is the gold standard for sports shooting. As for the lenses, you could still stick to the Sigma 120-300 f/2.8. Or if the zoom doesn't satisfy you, you can break it up into a 300 f/2.8 IS prime and a 70-200 IS f/2.8 zoom for about $2000 more total. Do you forsee any chance of needing something longer that a 1.4x tc couldn't handle?

If you do, then you need to start looking at a 400mm lens, but those get horribly expensive. The f/5.6 version is $1000, the f/4 version is $5000 (and isn't even that great), and the f/2.8 version is $6500. I would just stick with 300mm and add on a teleconverter.

There's also Nikon as an option with the D2X, but that's a $1000 premium over the 1D Mark II n for what really amounts to a megapixel difference. Yes, it gives you slightly more cropping room, but if you do the math as I said in the other thread, a factor of 1.18 is not noticeably much more...