Should I upgrade from XSi to 50D or T1i

Gringriff

I went out to shoot a friends softball game last night. It was 10 and under girls fast (not really) pitch on a small field. When I first arrived at the end of the first game I used ISO 1600 with the 70-200mm and 1.4 extender at f/4 and it worked fine. These were my test/setup shots as our friends were in the second game.

Once the second game started and it started getting at 8pm and it started getting dark I had to remove the 1.4x and at f/2.8 got marginal exposure at decent speeds. Very quickly as it got darker, even under the lights, I found myself fighting between underexposure at 1/250 to 1/400 or motion blur at the 1/60 to 1/150 ranges. VERY Frustrating!

Sorry for the long buildup, but here is my question. How much better would this be if I had the higher ISO capability of either the 50D or new T1i?

Obviously, I would love to have a 1D but that is not an option ($$) at this time. The bonus of video with the T1i would be really nice but I would not want to give that up if the 50D would perform better for sports shooting. In performance I really mean fast focusing and low noise at high ISO which may be the same on these two while I see the 50D has more 6.3 fps compared to 3.4 fps on the T1i.

Any comments would be helpful.

Thanks,
Andy

rmwphoto

I have a friend who's got the 50d and a sigma 70-200 f2.8 and he shot
alot of his kids hockey games in dark arenas and got some really good
shots and not much blur.
I have a XSI too wish i had the 50d.

johng

Andy,

Indoor sports get a lot of talk, but HS and below baseball and softball under lights is probably one of the toughest things to shoot. The lighting is almost never as good as a football field. So much so that I stopped shooting night games. Without doubt, ISO 6400 would be a huge bonus. BUT the other challenge for baseball / softball is distances. If you're on the field or in the dugout 200mm is barely enough for softball - still too short for baseball - especially in low ligtht where it's critical to fill the frame with your subject to have sufficient detail to survive noise and noise removal. Given those limitations - i.e. if you limit your shot selection to only those subjects within range (and for 200mm that's about 70-75 feet) the extra 2 stops will definitely help. But it's still a very frustrating shooting situation because of the poor lighting.

Gringriff

Thanks for the replies
Thanks so much for the responses. At this point I believe it is best to let the credit card rest and continue shooting in other situations. Not only would I need a new body but as John confirmed I would need a longer lens. Sure I might do fine on the small softball fields with the 70-200 but that is too limited a subject to justify the camera purchase. I did tell the parents that I would return for their end of season tournament which is played during the day, oh boy! I'll revisit the body issue in November when basketball starts up again.

I'll try to post a few of the pictures here if I find any that is even close to acceptable. I know the parents are expecting something but I did tell them I was limited by the lighting.

Thanks again,
Andy

scraider

My xti is for sale here hahaha
I, too, same song and dance. I upgraded to 50D and our high school annual photog got mad at me. He has 40D and is far superior to my ability. The 50 D is a real sweet camera. I love my 6.5 fps for B-ball games. But, it is true about softball and baseball and sometimes soccer play at other end of field. My Tamron 70-20 just will not zoom them in. My photog friend just got a Sigma ( i think) 200-500 bazooka lenses and it will make outfielders look like infielder. It is cool beyond cool but pricey

Gringriff

Well I did go ahead and get the 50D. I have used it once for soccer. Have not had a chance for baseball/softball yet but I have several parents asking me if take pictures of their kids at the baseball fields and there's only a few weeks left in their season. I need to learn fast.