Thanks for all the great feedback and images. Appreciated. I’ll certainly check out a used k-5 mkii and DA 50mm 1.8. Looks very good indeed.

John and Cabstar are 100% correct. At larger events, the photo pit is tightly policed, and is rightly the exclusive domain of the pro’s, with appropriate kit, who are there to earn a crust. Certainly crowd side for me! I tend to cover the smaller events where pit rules tend to be more relaxed, media interest limited, competition (if any) less frenzied, and both the event and artists welcome the exposure.

It’s not unusual however to see mobile phones in even the best of pits – I think this is driven by the fashion to provide regular media streams to social media throughout an event. Many media reps (and artists for that matter!) will periodically whip out a mobile to broadcast an image of the performance to twitter or whatever in ‘real time’. Where is that DSLR with a SIM card when you need it eh .

Thanks for the prompt feedback John ... To be clear - I only require STILL images & not movies. Cheers, Barrie.

Hi all. Happened across this forum by accident and you all appear to be a friendly bunch, give sound advice, and are kind to novices – so here goes!

A strange admission to start – but I've no real interest in general photography - HOWEVER – I do have a very specific requirement. I'm involved with a live music review website and lucky enough to be granted press photographer accreditation to both indoor and outdoor music festivals. Problem is that I've currently a Fuji bridge camera (S2980) that really struggles to cope with anything other than daylight shots. Anything at night or indoors and this little camera obviously can’t cope. So not only do I lack any credibility in the press pit from the pro’s , but my results are poor.
I understand that shooting concert footage can be some of the most challenging for even the best of photographers, which I’m not, with the biggest of budgets, which I haven’t. Quality wise the requirement is simply to provide half decent web page images to support a written review.

Could you kindly give me some advice on kit to satisfy this rather niche requirement? Probably your biggest challenge by far is that I only want to spend around £250 second hand. Thanks, Barrie.

nb. please do let me know if this is the correct forum for this topic.