Help taking photos of bands

I have a D5100 and am having a very hard time taking action shot of live performances. I'm not well versed in camera terminology (noob) so please be gentle.

It seems the camera takes too long to get focused and take the shot, I'm sure there is a way to set it up that will help. I've tried a few of the settings, even switched from manual to auto focus.

Most shots are taken inside clubs with lots of bright stage lights, I can get a few decent shots but most are blurry from the movement of the performers.

Can I set this thing up to take faster shots?

Thanks!

You are going to need to invest in a faster lens, such as a prime 1.8. For now, what you can do, is boost your ISO to get faster shutter speeds and open your lens as wide as you can. Use your AF illuminator as well.

When the lights get very low, as they often can at concerts, AF can get dodgy at best. You are usually better off focusing manually. Our eyes are a lot more sensitive in lower light levels than any AF mechanism. Below are a few shots I took at a recent show here in town. They were all shot on a D700 with a 300mm f/2.8 lens ED-IF (manual focus) Nikkor. In many cases the light levels would have been too low to accurately measure autofocus, as evidenced by the bouncing around of the focus confirmation dot in the viewfinder when I knew the scene was in sharp focus. And all of these were taken at only ISO 800 so in most cases there is no need to go to very high ISO's to get the right shot. These were shot at around 1/60 @ f/4 or f/5.6 with the rig on a monopod

In other words... your kit lenses most likely won't do it. Depending on how committed you are to doing this you're going to have to spend some cash for a low light lens.

With steady hands and maybe 3200 ISO, even a kit lenses will fare quite well. I've practiced copious amounts in low lighting and it does work. A faster lens would help use lower ISO thus reducing the noise and/or faster shutter speed to avoid blur when people move around.

This was perhaps the worst lighting I've shot in thus far and only had the 18-55 and 55-200 at the time, neither of which are quite suitable, but shots ended up just fine.

So would I use the A mode on the dial? How would I set the ISO?

SkvLTD said:

With steady hands and maybe 3200 ISO, even a kit lenses will fare quite well. I've practiced copious amounts in low lighting and it does work. A faster lens would help use lower ISO thus reducing the noise and/or faster shutter speed to avoid blur when people move around.

This was perhaps the worst lighting I've shot in thus far and only had the 18-55 and 55-200 at the time, neither of which are quite suitable, but shots ended up just fine.

Click to expand...

What lens were you using? How far away? It looks to me like you could stand right next to them. It also looks like you had light coming in from the outside windows based on color still being visible in the room (poster) and on the t-shirts in spite of the black lights.

I'm not saying it can't be done - haven't tried it. Just inquiring because I'm suspecting arpee's lighting will be far less than your example shots (no outside lights) and probably has to be further away and not on stage in front of the talent.

I was half-a-basement away, so in front of the stage - on stage kinda distance. I mixed 18-55 and 55-200, but around 55 on both. Something ~50-70 can reach just fine. And all of the lighting was UV, so white things helped stand out, but everything else became more difficult. Venue stages have lights and strobes, so all you gotta do is catch the right moment when the band is lit up.