What setting should I use for my camera at a concert?

Question

Im going to an outdoor concert in an ampitheater and the band is pretty active and there will be alot of light and explosions (The Jonas Brothers....)

I have a Canon Powershot.

The settings are...

Portrait

Lanscape

Night Scene (slow shutter speed)

Fast Shutter

Slow Shutter

SCN (Special Scenes which are the following)

-Foilage

-Snow

-Beach

-Fireworks

-Underwater

-Indoor

-Kids & Pets

-Night snapshot

Yes the concert will be at night and I am about 19 rows away from the stage but on a bit of an angle..

I really need help!

Thank you!

Answer 1

In low light you must have a small tripod to keep the camera still. The shutter will be staying open longer and any movement of camera or subject will show up as a blur.  You could also make a video to see the movement and hear the sound.

Also, your camera may have a capability of adding sound to a still picture then one good picture can be used to record the whole concert and no one will know what you are doing.

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The secret to making digital cameras work better is having good electrical contacts between the batteries and the camera.

Digital cameras require lots of power. If electrical contacts are not really good, this can cause lots of problems so battery and camera contacts must be cleaned properly.  Batteries may have a full charge, but will be viewed by the camera as low if contacts are not really good. The LCD display is a low steady load, but with extending the lens, focus, optical zoom, and flash charging in the capture mode; it is like starting a car.  With bad contacts the camera can do strange things like blurring pictures or shutting off with the lens out.

Answer 2

For your fully automatic P&S camera, Indoor may work the best, but you will still get camera movement if you don't steady it on something sturdy

If your P&S had aperture priority mode, then using it and setting your camera at its highest ISO.

Answer 3

If you're that far away, you won't get anything good, but you definitely want the fastest shutter speed possible.  With all the lighting you should be fine with the fast shutter mode. You can try it out before the band takes the stage and see what works for you. Definitely stay away from night scenes and snow and beach settings.  Those will underexpose your images too much.

Answer 4

2 yrs ago I went and saw an orchestra at least 50 + people in it.

I didn't know how to use my point & shoot too well then. In a cafe I was just about going to fiddle with apertures/shutter speeds and ISO settings.

Last minute my intuition said leave it on auto.

Yes I had blurry shots, but many I could easily enlarge to 8X10 and have it quite sharp. Leaving it on auto I found out later, the ISO setting never hit 400. Tops was 320.

It really depends on two things. The lighting and capturing the performers at peak of stillness. That takes practice. So take many shots; I believe that I took 163 shots that night. Very satisfied with the way photos turned out.

  

Answer 5

Turn off flash first of all. It's useless for taking pictures not closer than a few feet away. The flash power diminishes after a few feet and won't properly light something on stage.

Secondly set it to kids and pets. This means the ISO will be higher, and the shutter speed might also be quicker to have less blur.