Shooting a bar band

[RyanEG]

My cousin called me out of the blue a minute ago and asked me to come shoot his bands gig tonight. I've never done anything like this. Could anyone give me some ISO and apperature setting ranges to get me started to keep my ranging time down to a minimum? This isn't a pro shoot by any stretch but I would still like to keep them as nice as possible.

My camera is a Nikon D60 and I have the following lenses Nikkor 18-55 kit lens and a Sigma 70-300(which I don't believe would be appropiate for this). I'll be developing in lightroom.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ibanezgfx]

I'd say use your kit lens, bump up the ISO so that it isn't grainy, try and take some nice kind of artsy shots. Long shutter times can be kind of cool with a band. I'd also stay away from the flash if possible.

 

[Misled]

pm'ed you Ryan.

 

[RyanEG]

Thanks again fellas. If anything comes out decent I'll make sure to share.

 

[RyanEG]

Well...here are the highlights. I actually really enjoyed doing this and think that I might make a habit of it. Eventually I can see myself investing in a lens with a larger apperature. 4.6 just didn't allow enough light in most of the time.

 

[RyanEG]

Oh boy! They are a lot more noisey than my processing program indicated...oh well I guess.

 

[RyanEG]

A little fun with processing...

 

[RyanEG]

Thanks again for the help. I obviously need to keep at it. Lots of work to do.

 

[Recty]

Getting a lens that lets you shoot at f/2.8 or better will make a big difference, but that's quite an investment to make for unpaid photography

Also getting a camera body that allows you to shoot at high ISO without much noise will help you a ton, but again that's a big investment for not making any money doing it.

You might spend $100 on a 50mm f/1.8 and see how you like it.

 

[jimmy_beaner]

an f/1.8 lens would be much better for you with such low light shots. Though some of the editing you did to the noisey pictures actually makes them look really cool. There's not much else you can do but raise ISO, slower shutter (blur) or larger aperture lenses. Even my f/2.8 lenses some times are a bit narrow. I assume you shot in RAW? Some times you can recover a fair amount of detail out of shots that look rather dark.

 

[RyanEG]

I did shoot RAW but I don't have a good grasp on editting and converting them. The noise came from the 1600ISO. It really came down to having noise or blurring and noise won out for most of them. The guys are happy with them...I know that with sime more experience I can do better.

I have to say this was one of my most enjoyable camera experiences...even with the less than stellar results.

 

[jimmy_beaner]

I did shoot RAW but I don't have a good grasp on editting and converting them. The noise came from the 1600ISO. It really came down to having noise or blurring and noise won out for most of them. The guys are happy with them...I know that with sime more experience I can do better.

I have to say this was one of my most enjoyable camera experiences...even with the less than stellar results.

You'll need a program capable of editing RAW images. I haven't used whatever program you said you were using. I use a photoshop that can raise the brightness and that helps recover some usable image data. With that said, some of your images look like album covers with the editing you did.