If you are tring to photograph outside during winter and the horse is black then you'll have some special challenges which are easily overcome once you know about them.
The camera has a built-in light meter and this is how it determines what exposure settings to use to capture the shot. The problem, however, is that the light meter is programmed to assume that any scene is supposed to have a certain level of light that we refer to as "middle gray" (imagine if you converted the shot to black & white.) In other words if you took a photo of trees and grass -- though "green" in real life, it would be "gray" when converted to a black and white. This is the "middle gray" exposure that the camera presumes is correct.
If your scene is actually mostly full of white snow, then the light meter (not intelligent enough to realize it's snow) just thinks you've got a lot more "white" then it wants (remember... it presumes things should be "middle gray"). To compensate, it reduces the exposure to make the "white" snow appear more dull gray. In other words it under-exposes the shot.
Introduce a "black" horse to the "under-exposed" scene and the black horse will be especially black (missing detail).
If you shoot in full "automatic" mode the camera takes over all control of the exposure and you don't get a vote. You'll be disappointed with those shots.
Ideally you'll want to learn how to control exposure on your own (the book "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson or the Scott Kelby "Digital Photography" series are pretty good at explaining exposure in simple terms that anyone can understand and get you to a point where you control the exposure settings.)
However... there is something you can do straight away -- even without reading a book. If you turn the mode dial to "Program" mode, this uses the same automatic exposure settings as shooting in "Automatic" mode... EXCEPT you get to override things.
The feature that may help you is called "Exposure Compensation". With the camera in "Program" mode, you'll find a button in the upper right corner of the LCD screen that says "Av +/-". Press-and-hold that button (and you'll notice a scale appears on the rear LCD screen) and while you keep that button pressed, roll the dial on the front of the camera (near the shutter button) a few clicks to the right until the scale on the LCD screen reads "+1". You have now told the camera to take the exposure a full +1 stop "brighter" than what it would have done on its own (each "full" stop (the clicks are 1/3rd stop increments) means it will either DOUBLE or HALVE the amount of light from the previous stop. So +1 means it will collect twice as much light as it would have gathered at 0. +2 means it will collect twice as much light as +1 (which works to four times more light than the "0" setting.)
When you're taking a photo and it's NOT a white wintery scene with a black horse, don't forget to return the camera back to the "0" setting or you'll wonder why everything is over-exposed (it does not reset itself automatically when you switch it off.)
Here's a YouTube video demonstrating how to do this on your camera:
If you are having issues taking photographs of a black horse inside a dimly lit stable... that's a different problem. The camera likely just doesn't have enough light for the lens you are using.
The EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II lens is the typical kit lens that might have come with your camera. But the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens is a higher end lens that collects about four times more light and will help with exposures... but it's not cheap (there are a lot of good reasons why it's more expensive to build these better low-focal ratio zoom lenses, but suffice it to say that in general, all low-focal ratio zoom lenses tend to be expensive.)
As an alternative, a low-focal ratio lens that does NOT zoom (aka a "prime" lens) can provide a way to get a lens that gathers significantly more light, but since the lens does not "zoom" it's usually significantly less expensive.
For example... Canon makes an EF 28mm f/1.8 USM lens (about $459 USD). This provides a "normal" focal length on your camera (appears neither zoomed in nor zoomed out) and at f/1.8 it collects literally about 10x more light than the 18-55mm lens. It's not nearly as expensive as the f/2.8 zoom lens.
Even less expensive is the new EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM lens ($129 USD) or the new EF 50mm f/1.8 STM lens (also $129). These lenses are bargains at just $129. The 50mm f/1.8 captures more light, but the 50mm focal length means you'll need to be positioned much farther back to get an image of an animal as large as a horse. The 24mm is wider -- so you'll be able to get much closer... but it's an f/2.8 lens which means it doesn't capture quite as much light (more than the kit zoom lens, but slightly less than half as much light as the f/1.8 lens choices.)
If a lens gathers more light when the shutter is open then it means that the shutter doesn't have to be open nearly as long -- faster shutter speeds translates into being able to "freeze action".
The XSi is an old camera and the newer camera bodies have come a long way in sensor performance. They allow you to shoot at much higher ISO settings while still keping the amount of noise in the image somewhat low.
The T6i or T6s would both be excellent choices.
Within the $2000 budget there are two other camera choices... the 7D II is probably the best camera for "action" photography (it has amazing performance). The 6D is not as good at fast action (it's shutter mechanism can't capture frames nearly as fast as a 7D II) but the 6D performs extremely well in low light situations (shooting at ISO 3200 is nothing for a 6D and while there is some noise at ISO 6400 -- it's not much and it's easily cleaned up in software.)
But there's a catch if you switch to the 6D. The "catch" on the 6D is that it has a "full frame" sensor and this limits lens selection. The sensor is much larger than the sensor in your XSi -- which has the same physical dimensions as the sensor in the T6i/T6s and 7D II -- these cameras all use a sensor size called "APS-C" and it measures roughly 22mm wide by about 15mm tall. The 6D sensor measures 36mm wide and 24mm tall -- and that's the same size as a single frame from 35mm film. The Canon EOS "EF-S" lenses (note the "-S" suffix) are designed to be lower cost lenses that only project an image circle into the camera which is large enough to cover the size of an APS-C sensor. The Canon EOS "EF" lenses are designed to project a larger image circle into the camera body and that image is large enough to completely cover the size of a full-frame sensor OR the smaller APS-C sensor. This means if you went to a 6D body, you would not be able to attach or use any of your "EF-S" lenses on that new camera body.
Summary:
- Depending on how you shoot, simply changing settings (using "Exposure Compensation" to force the camera to set exposure either brighter or darker than what it would have selected on it's own. You can do this even with your current camera.
- Use lower focal ratio lenses (the expensive EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM for example... or the more economically priced EF 28mm f/1.8 USM or even the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM, etc.)
- "Upgrade" to a camera body that can handle shooting at much higher ISO settings with significantly lower "noise" in the image as compared to your XSi such as a the new EOS Rebel T6i or T6s, the higher end Canon 7D II (best for fast-action photography -- this camera is basically built for "action" and just about every feature is optimized for it) or the entry-level full-frame camera -- the Canon 6D -- not an "action" photography camera, but it has amazing low-light performance and in that regard it easily surpasses what a 7D II or T6i/T6s can do.
Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
