Actually re-reading your first post, if you want to do motor racing you will need a long lens, probably at least 300mm unless you can get close to the action. although you might want to get to grips with the short lengths (eg18-55 or there abouts) over the Christmas period and so figure out fully how the camera works, then later next year when the motorsport calendar kicks off again, invest in some longer glass. Put money into your glass, it is always worth it. You will see a bigger jump in quality by doing that, than getting a more expensive camera

That's what I'm thinking. I want to learn with what I have first before committing to more lenses. Can see it taking a while to learn all the camera can do. Still have the basic settings to learn.

What's good is there's cash back on Canon stuff at the moment so that's a saving on the £939.

I've been using a 600D for about 4 years until I recently upgraded to a 5Dmk3 and I had a ef-s 28-105 and a nifty 50. The nifty 50 had a little too much zoom on the cropped sensor for me. I managed to get some good photos of the red bull air race with my 28-105 but you had to get pretty close. Then last year I managed to get a canon 70-200 f2.8 for a real bargain second hand and on a cropped sensor camera it was epic for Motorsport giving 112-320mm. It doesn't have image stabilising but you won't need that with fast moving targets. Now I have the 5D I'm looking at a canon 100-400 mk2 but they are a bit pricey

I'm not sure what kit lenses come with the cameras your looking at but they are normally a good start. Then look at better glass for your action photos

I have used the 70-200mm f2.8 with a 1.4 TC with a bit of success (well to my standards)

 

Silverstone MotoGP 2015 (50 of 72) by Amanda, on Flickr

 

Silverstone MotoGP 2015 (33 of 72) by Amanda, on Flickr

Nice shots:-D I don't have any of mine publicly online, will put some up.

I have a 70D and found a guide on line - series is called From Snapshots to Great Shots, published online by Peachpit Press, much better than the manual for talking you through things like aperture, shutter, ISO.  Think it's about £14.  It's a good choice of camera and gets very highly rated for value for money.  Canon do an EF 70 - 300mm IS USM zoom which is pretty good quality, and if you're going for very long zooms there are two 150 - 600mm zooms, made by Sigma and Tamron, that start at about £700 (I know that's expensive but nothing like the Canon equivalent).  I don't have either, am saving for the Sigma, but they get good reviews.  If you're not needing that scale of zoom, the EF-S 18 - 135 IS STM lens is rated pretty pretty highly, and is mainly plastic so it is relatively light.

 

If you're on a budget you will probably think about getting a teleconverter to put between the lens and the camera, it doubles the focal length of the lens, Kenko do one, C-AF 2X DGX - mention the model number because it gets better rated than older models which are still for sale - I used it with the Canon 70 - 300; tbh, the 70 - 300 took pretty good pictures and blown up to the same image size, they were still slightly better than uncropped shots with the teleconverter attached, and although the teleconverter isn't completely manual, you do have a lot of compromises.  I've attached pics of the moon which give you an idea (they're not brilliant pictures but they're what I could get inner city, tripod, and without any post processing).

 

Where to buy - WEX photographic have a very good reputation, and your local Jessops store will often price match UK websites.  Places like SLR Hut, Simply Electronics, Paramoz, Valuebasket are based overseas, so you can get some quite good deals from them, (perfectly legal and they pay import duties) but there's always a question about faults and warranties.  For second hand gear, camerajungle.co.uk are good, MPB also do quite a lot of second hand stuff, as do WEX (who have a pretty slick part exchange process too).  Camera Jungle and MPB both show pictures of the actual lens.  

 

I think someone commented that you get much better zoom range with a bridge camera - which is true - that's because the bridge camera sensor is about the same size as a good camera phone one - about 3 grains of rice laid next to each other, compared to something like a postage stamp sized sensor for the 70D, so when the light crosses over in the lens barrel, it has to hit a smaller target, which means you can zoom further and still fill the frame.  But the picture quality is nothing like.  

 

If you do start venturing into some of the more manual settings, one really good tip is before you go out, check your settings, just in case you left something on/off from the last time (things like turning off optical stabilisation if you're using a tripod, ISO settings, focussing mode) I know this is really obvious but I can't tell you the number of times I've been off on a shoot and realised I've got the camera set up wrong.

 

Best of luck!

Edited 7 November, 201510 yr by KenMcD

Bought a 70D with the 135mm lens. Also bought a nifty fifty today too. What's nice is it tells you what each setting does which is great for beginners. WiFi works fine when home and is really handy. Still trying to work out how to shoot moon shots and night time. The camera stops me shooting but think it's to do with auto focus being on.

Congratulations

 

There are lots of guides to shooting the moon if you Google it. Best use manual and try a few tweaks as you dial the settings in. Remember the moon is very bright, don't be fooled into thinking of it as needing really high iso to get a shot, so expose for the moon, not the huge amount of blackness surrounding it (probably what your camera will try to do if you don't adjust the exposure manually or try spot exposure). 135mm probably isn't long enough for a great moon shot (you will have to digitally crop the image to 'zoom' in on it), but if you zoom it in (use a tripod if you have one) and go to live view, this will allow you to do a 10x zoom on the rear screen and so hit the focus manually spot on. This also lifts the mirror so there is less shake on the camera when the photo is taken. ideally you would use a timed shutter release (or a remote release) with the camera on a tripod. Also if you are taking lots of pictures with it on a tripod, you will notice how fast the moon actually moves! Jessops used to do a cheap wireless shutter release like this one, I have an earlier version of it. It's a great bit of kit, but I am not sure if you can remote control your 70D with a mobile phone over wifi? Also if you use a tripod, it may well be best to turn the image stabiliser off on your lens, that is unless it has tripod sensing technology (unlikely I guess?)

 

I have the Tamron 150-600mm and if I am honest it was a mistake really :( Most of what I do is handheld and it's very hard to hand hold at the long end. With it being a slow lens and really needing stopping down a tad for best possible sharpness, it creates too slow a shutter speed for my needs. It's a great value for money lens and as something like a birding lens it would be terrific, but as a sports lens, it just doesn't cut it for me. It's probably too long at 600mm too, at least on my crop sensor and the tendency is to get sucked into using the full 600mm. The lens I wanted was the new 100-400mm Canon, but it wasn't out when I got the Tamron - and now can't afford it . I have very few keepers from the Tammy. Perhaps if it had been a sunny day when I've used it, things might have been different, but as it was, the days I have used it were overcast (high iso, wide open and still not fast shutter speeds).

It does have it's own wifi hotspot which works but took it a while for it to setup. Apps are a bit slow to see it initially.

Jessops used to do a cheap wireless shutter release like this one

 

Can echo LE's recommendation re a wireless shutter release - very useful piece of kit. I actually bought a cheapy Chinese one (Yongnuo YN-128) which cost about £15 and has been absolutely brilliant. I've had it for a few years now and it still works a treat - can do single shot, high speed burst or bulb mode. 

 

How are you finding the 70D? Been rather tempted by one myself 

Loving it. Still lots to learn. Have found when in Aperture priority mode (which I'm most in at the moment), sometimes using the single point focus option it refuses to shoot. Trying to get out to shoot other things but weather has been awful. I also bought a hood for my 18-135mm lens

Are there any must have things I need to get? Guess I should get a lens cleaning kit and a tripod.

If you have an Android smartphone you can get an App that will double up as a remote shutter release via the built in wifi in the 70D

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.canon.ic.cameraconnect&hl=en

 

Also allows you to change settings on the camera, view images etc.

First thing I setup. Very handy