Best camera for concerts that security will allow? Also, best P&S camera with in-camera HDR?

Yeah...some of the newer-generation ultra-zoom compact cameras have VERY powerful zooms with a high long-end focal length. Extremely tele! Girl-watcher compacts I call them. A few years ago, The Luminous Landscape's founder, Michael Reichmann, got interested in one of the newer ultra-zooms...and the thing is, some of the shots he compared against big Canon glass, were actually quite comparable! actual, real-word tests, the tiny sensor and a mosestly-long lens versus the much bigger Canon dslr sensor and a stovepipe-sized lens, for cmparable sensor-to-lens-length parity, showed that the compact camera was extremely capable.

Reasearch ought to turn up the best compact, but I've seen some 1-inch sensor compact images from Sony's best...looked pretty good. Did you see The Rolling Stones, as photographed by the Sony 1-inch sensor article, about two years ago, on Petapixel (??) ? Amazing shots, showing what the so-called "one-inch sensor" type compacts have now been able to achieve. The sensors are nowhere near one inch, but that is the naming nomenclature, 1-inch sensor.
 
Just enjoy the show, download pictures from the hired photographers...
 
In my experience in sports, that's an issue - teams are trying to protect their player images, name, logo, etc. Seems similar with music. I found that things have changed in more recent years due to the internet and social media, as well as the capability to shoot a lot and edit down to what's usable, with people trying to get access, to try get pictures to sell, etc.

Depends on the venue and size of the event or level of sport; local or smaller places aren't usually so strict but at bigger arenas with larger crowds they are. And there are concerns due to the types of attacks that have happened, causing places to be more vigilant in being preventive and keeping a crowd of people safe.
 
In my experience in sports, that's an issue - teams are trying to protect their player images, name, logo, etc. Seems similar with music. I found that things have changed in more recent years due to the internet and social media, as well as the capability to shoot a lot and edit down to what's usable, with people trying to get access, to try get pictures to sell, etc.

Depends on the venue and size of the event or level of sport; local or smaller places aren't usually so strict but at bigger arenas with larger crowds they are. And there are concerns due to the types of attacks that have happened, causing places to be more vigilant in being preventive and keeping a crowd of people safe.
Agreed. I shot a lot of NCAA sports, I also love to watch most sports.

When I am shooting I am there with a pass on the sideline shooting, no hassles getting in or worrying about my gear being some sort of problem. I also pay absolutely no attention to the overall game itself. I usually know the score if I take a second in between action to take a score board shot generally right before the game ends. Otherwise my entire attention is on the action itself.

If I am attending a sporting event, I spend my time paying attention to the overall game, I am very aware of the score ever second of the game and am totally into the contest. I don't bother with any kind of camera what so ever when I am there as a fan.
 
Yeah, when I've done local hockey and have had credentials I'd be able to shoot from just about anyplace, and I'd be watching it differently. Means diddly going to an NHL game, I'm watching from the cheap seats like any other fan. (Except where they let fans be at ice level for warmups.) Still notice things like new dasher ads and backlit signs but don't have to make sure I get pictures of them.

I've usually found they checked my bag even when credentials were hanging on the bag and they'd seen me roaming at ice level all season. Just how it is.

I think it's possible to get decent pictures with a decent quality p&s, but it takes knowing what you're doing to get pro results consistently with whatever camera you use.
 
So I did a really dumb thing. I brought my new camera (ZS100) to a concert tonight without taking any time to get acquainted with the settings beforehand. I REALLY needed the bracketing settings but I could not figure out how to set it. Most of the pictures are blurry and overexposed (like most pictures at concerts I have found. The camera thinks it's darker than it actually is and overexposes.) After giving up on it I got better results with my Galaxy S6 smartphone. At least I know how to go into the "pro" settings on it and reduce the exposure. Probably can't blow them up big but they look quite good on the phone itself.
 
Shooting in manual would easily correct/compensate for the problem. If you're using bracketing to overcome theatre lighting ... you're sorta using bracketing wrong. Spot metering and fine tuning via chimping is a good way to shoot theatre.
 
Yeah, I goofed. I figured bracketing would give me 3 shots, perhaps one good one and 2 to discard, but it probably wasn't the right way of doing what I was trying to do and I needed to learn how to set up the camera for that ahead of time and not be getting frustrated and wasting time during the concert.

I located spot metering and tried that but that didn't work too well...at the same time I had a problem with autofocus turning off on me...

I don't even know I had the camera dial set to the right position - I wanted it on automatic but had it set to "A" thinking automatic at the time...then it dawned on me after a lot of time was wasted that that was probably aperture priority!

I have been away from this for too long and it was really a bonehead move trying to use a brand new camera right out of the box and not getting acquainted with it before an event I wanted to get good pictures at!
 
Next time, if you wann' shoot in an automated mode, dial in MINUS exposure compensation, in almost all theater/concert scenarios, and that will take care of that tendency toward terribly over-exposed shots done in auto modes like Apreture Priority (Av in Canon-speak), or in Programmed mode. Start areound Minus 2.5 EV, and go up to whatever it takes; many cameras have a maximum of 3.0 EV of correction...some might have 5.0 EV worth of correction.

This (this being the need to dial in Minus EV compensation) will also hold true for AUTO-ISO type setttings shot in Manual exposure mode; the meter needs to be biased toward UNDER-exposing what ity sees in most spot-lighted or stage-lighted scenarios where the actors/musicians are fairly brightly-lit, but the backgroiund benind them is mostly black or very dark, and much, much dimmer in light intensity.

With NEWER-generation Sony-type ISO-invariant sensors, the need for bracketing has been greatly reduced...I myslef utterly LOATHE bracketing in low-light situations or dim-light scenarios...I want to pick and exposure ans GET that same exposure, and not have shots that yo-yo up and down and on and up and down and on and up and down and on...fer cryin' out loud, all bracketing does on a new-generation sensor is to create a HUGE amount of work at the processing end of things--as well as utterly RUINING some of the shots if they fall outside the window of the sensor and ether exposure the camera has set!

I got a new camera a couple weeks ago, Nikon D610...somehow last Saturday evening around 9:45 PM, about 30 minutes after sunset, I accidentally got it into bracketing mode, and consumer oriented POS camera body that it is, it does NOT have the dedicated, pro-Nikon bracketing control that I am used to! ACK!! Bracketing RUINED a bunch of post-sunset, low-light shots....there were many that were just "outside the window" of salvageable exposures! So...like William Jefferson Clinton used to say, "I feel your pain, I do, I really, really do."
 
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Yeah, I goofed. I figured bracketing would give me 3 shots, perhaps one good one and 2 to discard, but it probably wasn't the right way of doing what I was trying to do and I needed to learn how to set up the camera for that ahead of time and not be getting frustrated and wasting time during the concert.

I located spot metering and tried that but that didn't work too well...at the same time I had a problem with autofocus turning off on me...

I don't even know I had the camera dial set to the right position - I wanted it on automatic but had it set to "A" thinking automatic at the time...then it dawned on me after a lot of time was wasted that that was probably aperture priority!

I have been away from this for too long and it was really a bonehead move trying to use a brand new camera right out of the box and not getting acquainted with it before an event I wanted to get good pictures at!
I, and I imagine most of us here, are guilty of the same thing. Terribly frustrating. In the voice of Clinton, "... I feel your pain ...".
 
I have yet to see a good cell phone concert photo. I am sure they look...passable for a snap shot on your phone, but if you were to upload one to this thread an admin might ban you for 3 days.:1219:
 
A few came out good, considering.
 
Well if I do you'd have to remember I said "considering". I'm not saying they are good, I am saying they are good considering they were taken with a cell phone.
 

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