Band photography - general advice

[jhob]

I'm photographing my friends' 11 piece ska band tonight (http://www.allhailthebison.com/ is you're interested) as they are up in Edinburgh playing the festival. I've not really taken any band photographs in earnest before so I'm looking for a bit of general advice on technique and things to look out for.

I'm definitely taking my D200 with 50mm f1.8, I'm imagining it will be pretty dark in there so I'll likely have the ISO well cranked up. I'm also toying with the idea of taking my D70 with 17-50 f2.8 attached or I may just take the lens. I want to go as light as possible and avoid taking too much kit. I reckon I'll be able to get right up close to the band so longer lenses shouldn't be necessary.

So what advice would you lot have to offer me?

 

[petemc]

ISO as high up as you're comfortable with, maybe a notch over. For gigs I usually shoot ISO1600 and thankfully the D200 is quite nice with grain. Does it have spot metering? If so set it to that and see how the shots look. Maybe use exposure compensation to drop it down if its over-exposed. Remember that you don't really want the entire scene just the people in the band.

 

[jhob]

Yeah I have spot metering, was thinking about using that or possibly shooting in manual. Then I was thinking that that light levels, although low, will probably vary quite a lot and so using manual might be a bit cumbersome.

Thanks for the pointers Pete.