Gig Shoot Advice Please!

For small venues a short zoom 16-50mm will be fine, watch out for stage clutter and background lights that might stray around the head area.

Don't be afraid to use flash. But avoid machine gunning which will annoy the crowd. Nifty fifties are good but if there is no light to play with then life will be difficult...

Main shots for each band member

Head
Head and body
Full length
Guitarists try and get the whole guitar in frame.
Any band interactions.
Some crowd shots

My tip - use fully manual exposure "M", spot metering mode. Use the Green Button to grab an exposure point and work from there.

With experience you get used to grabbing a spot exposure and guestimating the lighting changes.

Personally I also switch the autofocus from half-press-shutter to the AF button on the back. That way I can use the centre point to get accurate focus lock ahead of time, and get an instant shutter release on the 'moment'

Matt

I have only shot one gig as such but found that as I was using the on camera flash it worked better with the power of the flash lowered by 1/3 ev.

Hope this helps


Stu

Depends where the gig is , if its in a small venue ,pub or hall , you will be ok using flash , but a larger venue flash is a no! no!

But a gather by your post that its going to be a small venue ? and you know the band ? if this correct your going to be able to use a fast fifty manual or AF , i got great results using a Super Takumar 105mm F2.8 in a small venue it was excellent for getting upper body shots and head shots when closer to the stage .