Hey,
I'm new to the world of DSLR photography. Had a P&S for years that I loved (Powershot S3 IS) but I couldn't get any good pictures of my kids playing basketball. The S3 was a good camera, I still love that thing, it just didn't have the ability to shoot in a gym very good.

This post is to mainly share information I've learned so far with some examples of my first round of shooting in the gym with my new setup. Hopefully this will help another newbie out as well....

My setup is a Canon T1i (Floor Model at costo $699) with a $100 50mm 1.8 Canon Lens. Most of the shots I took last night were at 1/250, f1.8 to f2.2, and 800 or 1600 iso.

My goal was to get some good pictures of my kids playing basketball and get some pictures for the other parents on the team, and do it without spending thousands of dollars. I'm not shooting for Sport Illustrated, not trying to turn into a professional selling pictures, just wanted some pictures to hang up at home and give to my friends and family.

I'm very pleased with the pictures from last nights game. The Canon 50MM 1.8 lens is awesome for this. Yes, I know, I'm soon to hear from some of you on how you can't shoot sports without a fast telephoto lense, start saving for the $2000 lense, ect, but this $100 lense performed fantastic to accomplish my goal. Since the gyms we play in are small, and I can stand on the sideline, or in the first row of seats, a telephoto would be a waste of money anyway.

I turned the camera to Shutter priority mode, set the shutter speed to 1/250, and started at a 400 iso. Those were way underexposed, so I went to 800 iso, and they were still underexposed a bit, but not bad. I shot a couple hundred shots at 800, then the 4th quarter at 1600. The main thing is they aren't anywhere as noisy as my old camera at 800 and 1600 ISO. These pictures over all are so much better than my old camera I couldn't be happier! I still have alot to learn though. :)

Here's a couple pics:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6ys8mt_y0Ds/SwaxJC52OZI/AAAAAAAABBM/OhexQK9EEKg/s912/IMG_1106.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6ys8mt_y0Ds/Swaxfo749UI/AAAAAAAABDA/XTLbZw2IzAI/s912/IMG_1206.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_6ys8mt_y0Ds/SwaxdEPr54I/AAAAAAAABC0/RZEsxq_nOgc/s912/IMG_1189.JPG