I got my inspiration for this post from last weekend's outdoor concert.
Outdoor concerts, especially when they are free of charge, are usually more lax in their camera policies, and this was a great opportunity to take a real camera to a concert!
All the concepts described here are valid also for any function on a stage, where "limelight" is involved.
1.- Permits: The first thing that you should probably do when shooting a concert, is to check the camera policy. The least thing you want to do is leave your $1,000+ equipment at some obscure locker room. Check both the venue's policy and the event's. They may be different. Obviously getting a back-stage pass is the ultimate passport to create great images.
2.- Focal length: The next thing to consider is the focal length you will be using. Obviously you want to get to your subject as close as possible. You have heard me say before that it is not the same to walk up to your subject that to zoom in, but in this case you may have no other option. You want the longest focal length you can afford and the brightest it can be. I use a 70-200mm f2.8 lens that is very bright. A bright lens (or a low f-stop) is important because it will allow you to use faster shutter speeds, which in this case is useful not as much to freeze movement on the stage, but more for ruling out any camera shake that may be introduced.
3.- Sensitivity: As far as lighting, concerts are usually very brightly lit, but still not as bright as the sun at noon. So you want to probably set your camera to a higher ISO without creating excessive noise. A ISO 800 setting is probably a good start. Look for noise in your images.
4.- Exposure: Now, the subject at concerts and plays are usually very well lit but you have a predominant dark background. Subjects show up in your viewfinder as a very small but very brightly lit spot on a dark background. This setting usually messes with your photometer and you end up with "burned" images. The subject is completely blown out with no details, and that cannot be recovered. Your best chance is to put your camera in manual exposure. There are other methods for doing this, but you will have to adjust by exposure by trial and error.
a.- First, set your ISO to a higher setting, 800 would be a good start.
b.- Pick an aperture that gives you enough depth of field. f4, f5.6 are quite appropriate.
c.- Now, place your shutter speed to a setting where the camera indicates a correct exposure (1/30?, 1/60?).
d.- Take a test shot and look at the bright areas of the image. Are they burned out? Is detail lost and they turn into white blobs? Most modern cameras have a feature that makes overexposed areas of the image blink or make "zebras". Turn this on and look for the blinking areas.
e.- Increase your shutter speed one stop at a time until the blinking and the burned out areas disappear. Turn it up maybe another 1/3 of a stop for that extra safety range when they turn all the kilowatts towards one subject.
Leave your exposure here and don't touch it, unless you see something wrong. Shooting manual will ensure that your exposure is right and your photometer is not jumping up and down depending on how many of the band members are in the shot.
You may be concerned on what happens under changing lighting conditions. Your camera is in manual and it will not respond, Right? Right. The thruth is that -within a range- your camera is going to "follow" the lighting mood that the scene director has created for the concert or play. This means that when they turn down the lights to achieve a dramatic effect, you will be capturing this too!
Last but not least: Forget about using a flash. Your subjects are pretty far under these circumstances and a camera-mounted flash will not do you any good, except give away that this is your first time photographing a concert!
