My new DSLR

Well, today I picked up a Canon Rebel XSI. Before hand I shot 35mm, and never took pictures in the dark due to the fright of them not developing; Pictures not developing = waste of money; But now I have a delete button! SO tonight I went to try out the camera at my brothers baseball game, I had the camera set to "sport" mode but the shutter was staying open too long, so I set it to "M" and played with the aperture and shutter speed but couldnt find a common ground. The pictures constantly came out too dark. HELP!

No matter if the camera is digital or film you need to manage the expose for the light and situation.

Sports demand a fast shutter speed to freeze motion. This cuts the available light.

To compensate you need to use both high ISO values (high light sensitivity) and fast apertures (to let in as much light as possible).

Your signature suggests you were shooting with the slow f/5.6 70-300 lens. This means for night baseball you would probably need a higher ISO level than you have accessible to allow the shutter speed you need. Night sports (and indoor sports) in general need specialist lenses with fast apertures to deal with the low light.

Thank you, that thought didnt even cross my mind! What type of lens would you recomend?

For low light sports, the larger max aperture the better. I shoot sports with my 70-200 f/2.8 and 85 f/1.8 constantly. The 70-200 is a little bit short on a baseball field, but doesnt do bad. In general, the longer the reach gets with large apertures, the more expensive it becomes.

35mmNewbie wrote in post #9960499
Thank you, that thought didnt even cross my mind! What type of lens would you recomend?

Before you spend a lot of money on lenses, post some sample shots from the field (even if they are blurry or dark) so we can get a handle on what the light level is that you are trying to shoot. Without that my guess is that f/2.8 will probably be fast enough, and f/4 will probably be too slow assuming you can use up to ISO3200.

If you do decide that f/2.8 will work, these are some possibles:

70-200/2.8, either from Canon or Sigma. 200mm is just long enough on the XSi to allow you to shoot the infielders with some moderate cropping if the fences are not set back too far. The ability to zoom shorter than 200mm might be handy. This lens will run you $900 to $1200.

EF 200/2.8 You lose the ability to zoom, but if you are tracking just one player this is less of a problem. Advantage is this lens is about $650.

One last consideration before you spend money is that night baseball pictures are often kind of lousy even when you have the right gear. The problem is that the hats cast terrible shadows on the faces when playing under the lights. Think about that before spending a lot of money.

And unlike 35mm you have ISO800 or 1600 to use at your disposal whenever you like. 8)

Never be afraid to up the ISO. Higher ISO's tend to have more noise but its a trade off worth making.

Better to have a little noise due to the high ISO than a blurred image IMHO.

JeffreyG wrote in post #9962115
Before you spend a lot of money on lenses, post some sample shots from the field (even if they are blurry or dark) so we can get a handle on what the light level is that you are trying to shoot. Without that my guess is that f/2.8 will probably be fast enough, and f/4 will probably be too slow assuming you can use up to ISO3200.

If you do decide that f/2.8 will work, these are some possibles:

70-200/2.8, either from Canon or Sigma. 200mm is just long enough on the XSi to allow you to shoot the infielders with some moderate cropping if the fences are not set back too far. The ability to zoom shorter than 200mm might be handy. This lens will run you $900 to $1200.

EF 200/2.8 You lose the ability to zoom, but if you are tracking just one player this is less of a problem. Advantage is this lens is about $650.

One last consideration before you spend money is that night baseball pictures are often kind of lousy even when you have the right gear. The problem is that the hats cast terrible shadows on the faces when playing under the lights. Think about that before spending a lot of money.

Unfortunately I deleted all the pictures I took at night. But I should have more soon.