Concert Tonight!

Hi. I'm a newbie with a D5500 and 2 kit lenses (AF -S DX Nikkor 18-55 mm f/3.5- 5.6G VR II, and 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G VRII ED). I am heading to a Lucinda Williams concert tonight, have pretty good seats (2d row) and am hoping to take some photos. The concert is in an auditorium--the Ocean City NJ Music Pier in case any of you have been there--so I expect typical stage lighting, likely nothing too elaborate.

Of course I am assuming that I am not precluded from bringing the camera in. I also don't want to get flagged and ejected if I use the built in flash. So I'm looking for advice re which lens to take with me and which settings I should use.

My initial thoughts are to use the 18-55 due to the larger aperture setting, to set the ISO at 1600 and shoot in program mode. However if I do this the flash will fire, right? Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions.
Thanks.

We won't really be able to give you much good advice as we don't know what the lighting scenario is going to look like at the venue. Typically though the artist will be fairly well illuminated (depending on genre, but I have a feeling this isn't a death metal concert ). You may find that you won't have to crank up the ISO as high as you expect. If the background is dark I'd make sure that you're maybe in center weighted or spot metering so that your camera doesn't try and compensave for the black back ground and blow out your subject if you're going to use a program mode.

Personally, this is the kind of shooting I like to do in full manual mode. Complex lighting scenarios can be really hard for your camera to figure out the proper exposure on. Of course most things can be saved in post, but everything always looks better when properly exposed from the beginning. Take a few test shots and tweak your manual settings to give you the look you are going for and the lighting shouldn't change drastically enough that you'll need to be making adjustments shot after shot once you've got the look dialed in that you're going for.

Take your 55-200 though, your 18-55 I can almost guarantee may be too short to get the kinds of shots of the artist that you'll want.

I suggest bringing th 55-200. You should be fine with that. I used a 3200 with that 55-200 three years ago at the Chicago Blues Festival and I managed to get some pretty good photos with it. Don't use flash, they'll probably kick you out of there if you do. You can use auto without flash.

Sent from my mobile computer.

Thanks for the advice. FYI I primarily shot in Manual mode, cranked the ISO up to 1600 or 3200 and then just shot. I could not use a flash but I was close enough -- 2d row -- that the stage lighting was bright enough for a some decent pictures. Regrettably I screwed up by not bringing the 18-55mm lens with me. I think it would have yielded some ok pix too.