shooting in a gym

I have recently started taking pics of my son and his wrestling crew at practice and at tournaments. problem i'm having is none of my lenses seem to work well inside there and I dont want to be popping flashes every 30 seconds. any suggestions or ideas? I have tried to jack the ISO up some but I am starting to get noise. I tried to under expose to get it so it doesnt blur and triedto fix it in cs4 but I get too much noise that way. so I am open to ideas.

thanks

Honestly, you're stuck. If you under expose and try to pull it back it's going to create noise, if you shoot high ISO it's going to create noise. The only way around that is get better gear (lens/body - hard to tell since you didn't list what you have already) or supply light. Personally I use two strobes to shoot wrestling so they're higher, bounced, and not as noticeable as direct flash - I hate direct flash and feel like a jerk popping off flash non-stop. Strobes, don't get that feeling as they are far less distracting if set up right.

I have an xsi with the kit lens and a canon 50mm 2.5. Those are the basics I use for close shooting. What f stop should I be looking for then? When I shot at about 1/30 to1/20 the pics looked ok but not fantastic. I have another job to do in a gym but there is no way they will let me set up strobes. Not sure what to do other than get my big flash out.

1/30 and 1/20?

f/lowest you can go

shutter at least 1/500 to stop action.

You get your desired f/stop and then shutter and adjust ISO from there.

I tried to go that fast but the images were black. what stop lens should I look for using inside then?

MJPhotos24 wrote in post #9220276
Honestly, you're stuck. If you under expose and try to pull it back it's going to create noise, if you shoot high ISO it's going to create noise.

My experience has been to shoot the highest ISO rather than try to pull the exposure back in post. The in-camera noise is much easier to clean up with noise reduction software than the nosie created by pulling the exposure back in.

thanks for the advise. ill give it a shot

I'm not sure how far from the action you are but a 50mm 1.8 is really inexpensive and will let in a bunch more light which would allow you to shorten your shutter speed and/or lower your ISO.

That is if your are willing to add more gear to your collection.
Nick

Sibil wrote in post #9224825
My experience has been to shoot the highest ISO rather than try to pull the exposure back in post. The in-camera noise is much easier to clean up with noise reduction software than the nosie created by pulling the exposure back in.

Honestly, noise doesn't even bug me anymore - but I'm using pretty good bodies that handle noise well. For awhile I'd clean it up but unless going to print or certain pics I usually just leave as is. You are right, it's better to just use higher ISO than try to pull it back.