Pictures and Lighting

[Natron]

Ok everyone please go easy on me. I am new to this Digital SLR gig. I purchased the Olympus E500. Some of my pictures outside are ok but inside is a whole nother story. I cannot get it right. I am usually in a gym to snap pix of my daughters gymnastics competitions. There is generally low lighting. I cannot figure out what setting to use. Shoud I be on A, P, S, M. What ISO? The pictures look OK on 2.5" screen but on my computer there is so much noise the pix are a loss. I have read, practiced, you name it. I have came to the point where I have almost given up and just buy the darn pictures at the meets. Maybe I should take a class??

Natron

[rsimmons]

Where are you sitting/standing when you shoot. What lense are you using? And what are you set to now?

[Natron]

I am using 40-150 mm lens. I stand up close or just move around. this weekend I used the A setting with a 1600 ISO. Someone sitting next to me was helping me. He sounded like he knew what he was doing , appearantly not. I came home and put the pics on computer. They totally sucked.

Natron

[rsimmons]

I'm still new to this, but I was photographing a basketball game with the e500 and the best shots I got were based on the shutter speed, not the aperture. I tried using the sport scene and the shots were ok, but manually increasing the shutter helped. I found the best thing was to let the action come to the camera and not try to follow to hard and swing, but I'm still learning myself. I'm still playing around with it. Sometimes I let my dogs out and try to shoot them for practice.