shooting for a concert friday, help please

iPhoto17 · Apr 15, 2012

im 90% sure im going way over my head on this one, but its one of those cheap 5 dollar concerts for beginning artists, is it possible i can get by on my 18-55 kit lens?

Tony S · Apr 15, 2012

Define get by??? Probably not if it's being held in a low light venue. If you are lucky you might be able to time a shot or two with some stage lighting flashing.

jaxx419 · Apr 15, 2012

I used to do marketing for a large venue and had to take professional photographers out to take photos. They were never allowed to use flash, per the promoters but they wouldn't have wanted to use it anyway. Hopefully the $5 concert has some sort of stage lighting you can use.

From my experience watching and seeing photos before they were edited... Get close, shoot wide and crop as needed. Our photographer had a really nice camera and could shoot with a high ISO with little noise.

iPhoto17 · Apr 15, 2012

ill have to figure out what the venue is, if its one of those small bar type places the lights from stage affects can help, if only i had a wide angle lens

Tony S · Apr 15, 2012

By flash I meant getting lucky with the timing a shot or two with the stage lighting, not using your flash.

shmne · Apr 16, 2012

Generally speaking 18mm is considered wide angle.

iPhoto17 · Apr 19, 2012

i got to talk to the guy im shooting for today and i feel better because expectations arent too high since his last photographer used a point and shoot and he cut his finger off recently so he really needed a photographer ASAP, hes gonna let me on stage and use my flash if i have to, but i probably wont.

he said he can make me a watermark for my photos that hes gonna put up on his website, can someone help me come up with a watermark?

also, i should shoot around 800 ISO possibly 1600 depending on lighting conditions?

imagemaker46 · Apr 19, 2012

You can get by using any camera and lens if you understand how to use the light that's avaliable and you have a clue about photography. If you don't have these elements going for you, enjoy the concert.

ewick · Apr 20, 2012

I go to 5 dollar concerts all the time and the majorty of places dont care if you pop a flash. however, bare on camera flash is no good. A flash sphere or cone or whatever you wanna call it is the way to go on your off camera speed light. good luck with that and you should post photos of what you shoot on here.

imagemaker46 · Apr 20, 2012

The mood at a concert is a result of the avaliable light, as with most new camera owners they see something, it looks perfect, they pop the flash up and funny how it doesn't look perfect anymore, it doesn't look anything like what they saw. Learning to use avaliable light should be one of the first steps after learning how to turn a camera on. Using a flash at a concert, especially in a very small room will create those big harsh shadows and overpower the "real" images that you see.

DiskoJoe · Apr 20, 2012

iPhoto17 said:
i got to talk to the guy im shooting for today and i feel better because expectations arent too high since his last photographer used a point and shoot and he cut his finger off recently so he really needed a photographer ASAP, hes gonna let me on stage and use my flash if i have to, but i probably wont.

he said he can make me a watermark for my photos that hes gonna put up on his website, can someone help me come up with a watermark?

also, i should shoot around 800 ISO possibly 1600 depending on lighting conditions?

Try some shots with flash some without if they have some lighting and see what you can get. keep the aperture open as much as you can. Iso 800-1600 would probably be needed but try to see if you can get anything lower first. As for lenses, sounds like you need to make some photography friends locally so you can borrow some glass.