Newbie questions on Indoor Basketball

[b3l5tele]

Hi I'm new here and I did a search on my issue but was not able to come up with anything specific enough and I was hoping I could get some help.
I have a new Rebel XT and an EF 75-300 5.6 IS lens. My outdoor pictures of my son's lacrosse games come out great using the sports setting. However, the indoor gym shots of my other son's basketball games come out blurry or dark.
I have experimented with the the "P" and "Tv" settings, shutter speed and ISO but I can't seem to get a decent shot.
Can anyone offer any suggestions on camera settings that might work.
Thanks.

[cecilc]

The first thing that I'd recommend is a faster lens .... that 5.6 lens is waaaaaay too slow for capturing action in a basketball game in an indoor gym. You can't get an ISO high enough to allow a fast enough shutter speed with a 5.6. I shoot basketball with a 100 2.0 and an 85 1.8 and still struggle with obtaining action-stopping shutter speeds.

So, when you get that "faster" lens, try these settings: shoot in manual mode; you're probably going to have to use 1600 ISO; use the widest, most open aperture you've got; and at least 1/250 on the shutter speed (and faster is always better!).

Good luck with that ....

Edit
A couple of examples ....
These are shots from last season, and I've already posted them here in another thread as well .... so they're not "new" by any means ....

http://www.awesomehouse.com/images/girlsbball.jpg
http://www.awesomehouse.com/images/walton1.jpg