Newbie- Zoom Lens Question

[Yanks25]

I am looking to get a new camera, to step up quite a bit from my current camera which I'd consider just a regular camera (Sony DSC-P8, 3x optical). I am looking at a Nikon D50 6.1 mp that comes with a 70-300mm zoom lens. I have really no knowledge of mm zoom lens, and I would like to know, how good is 300mm zoom lens? I am looking to go to many baseball games and sit somewhere from the 5th row to the 20th row (first base side), would I be able to zoom into the shortstop and take a very close-up shot? My dad said he used to use his 210mm lens and sit at the top of the stadium and take amazing shots at tennis matches, and that was with a regular old 35mm camera and it's quite old now. Please let me know. Thanks

[Sambo]

Congrats on (maybe) getting a new camera! A 70 - 300 zoom is a great lens for zooming in close. Because of the smaller sensor size of the dslr cameras, there is a 1.5 to 1.6 multiplier. Otherwords, a 300mm zoom on a dslr would have the effective zoom of 480mm equivilent to a 35 mm camera, so your zoom just got a lot longer! But your widest lens just got longer too, so there is a trade off. I have a 70-300 zoom myself and love it. If you want good examples of great nature photos, find aladyforty's gallery on this site. She is fantastic with her zoom lens!

Sam

[radugrozes]

So your 70-300 will act as a 105-450 on a film camera.

But you should be aware that it is quite a slow lens at 5.6.

I hope you plan to shoot sports with in in the broad daylight, not indoors.

[Buddy4344]

Just a reminder - if your at 300mm, your going to want to have a shutter speed around 1/300 to 1/500 minimum when at full zoom. You can do it, but if this is a night game or lower light, you will want to use the ISO adjustment up to maybe 400 ISO. This may cause a little more noise in the shot.

I think you will be in great shape for day games - it is the night games that may challenge you due to the lower lighting?
Buddy