shooting gigs advice

[R1chy11]

Got the offer to shoot a gig this coming weekend but never done anything in this sort of lighting before, any advice would be great. at the minute all i'm using is Nikon d40, 18-55vr, 55-200 and I'm looking at pickin up an sb600 as i only have the built in flash at the moment.

Thanks in advance

[Fordo]

have you got a tripod / monopod? Gigs are very low light environments, so might be a worthwhile investment.

Are you comfortable shooting in fully manual, or have you just started with dslrs?

Personally, id shoot in Aperture priority mode, get the iris wide open, and id do a bit of test shooting at the beginning, and up the iso a bit until i could get sharp images. Id have multi-shot mode on, so i can rapid fire off several shots when holding the button down.

If your using full auto, the camera will see a dark environment, and want a long shutter speed = motion blur = blurry shots.

Auto Focus will be struggle in the dark, so personally id focus manually.

I wouldnt use flash - performers might not appreciate a flash gun going off every 10 secs.

Hope that helps!

[tog]

Fordo said:

I wouldnt use flash - performers might not appreciate a flash gun going off every 10 secs.

At most gigs the rules say first three songs, no flash. Then security haul you out of the pit.

[R1chy11]

thanks for the help, i'm fairly new to dslr's but have a pretty good idea of what i'm doing, just never shot in this sort of lighting before. It's for a friends band, they have a professional tog there but they weren't particularly happy with him last time so he asked me if i wanted to go along, I've got a tripod and with it being a small gig they dont mind flashes but i'll try without too for future opportunities.

[Ravell]

A recomendation from someone who seemed to know their stuff at a gig and said he'd been shotting gigs for 15 years, As the lighting at gigs changes fast, often too fast for the camera to get everything set right, set the camera to full manual mode. Set the appeture and shutter speed for a lighting situation you expect and shoot when that moment comes along. If you don't know what settings to use, meter a lighing situation you like, set everything up and shoot the next time that lighting sequence comes along. Shoot raw so you can correct white ballance after the fact without data loss.

Not tried it myself yet as I don't have to courage to take my SLR to gigs yet, but it seemed to make sense at the time and I was impressed with the pictures the guy was making.

From personal experiance of shooting at gigs with a compact camera, don't use flash when the smoke machines are on, you might be able to see though it with availible stage light, but the flash will make the stage invisible.

Edited by Ravell on Wednesday 17th June 22:49

[Simpo Two]

Without flash you're going to need big apertures and high ISO. I don't see much benefit in a tripod unless you want a sharp stage with blurred figures. Same goes for VR.

You might get some lucky shots but I'm afraid your lenses are not ideal. Can you grab a 50mm f1.8 in time?

Edited by Simpo Two on Wednesday 17th June 22:51