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Camera mode: Manual

Shutter Speed: 1/250 or faster

Aperture: Wide open (f/1.4-f/2.8)

ISO: As high as possible; 3200 max

White Balance: Auto WB

Autofocus: AI-Servo

Drive Mode: Continuous

Metering: N/A

Image Quality: RAW

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Shooting in manual mode gives you the most control over exposing your image correctly. You want to be able to change your settings quickly to combat changing lighting conditions, especially when shooting concerts.

You may see some people recommend AV (aperture priority) or TV (shutter priority) modes for shooting shows, but I recommend against them as you really want full control over aperture, ISO, and shutter speed to adjust to the situation. There are too many factors to just “lock-in” your aperture or shutter speed and not worry about them. The other upside is that shooting manual will quickly force you to learn how each setting affects your image and you’ll become a better photographer because of it!

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You ideally want your shutter speed to be as fast as it can be without having to push the limits of your other settings to get a bright enough image. If you reference the exposure triangle above, you can see that if you have a slow shutter speed, you’re allowing more light into the sensor resulting in a brighter image

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To shoot concerts, you really do need a specialized “fast” lens that allows for a low f-number aperture. They’re often really expensive, but there are lens options for nearly any price. These lenses let in more light so that you won’t have to make your shutter speed really low or ISO really high (we’ll get to that in a moment) to get bright enough photos. You can see the correlation back up in the exposure triangle chart

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The effect of ISO on your photos is pretty simple; if your ISO is high, you’ll get grain or noise in your photo, if it’s low then you won’t.If you’re struggling to take bright enough photos, ISO may be the first setting you want to adjust. A little extra grain in your image beats having a blurry photo of the most important photo of the night that you’d get from having your shutter speed too slow. Usually you’ll be shooting with a wide open aperture so you can’t adjust your setting further to get more light; that leaves ISO.

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Leaving your white balance on auto is the best thing you can do as a beginner. As you get a grip on the rest of your camera’s settings, you can start learning a bit more about how white balance works, and how you can adjust it to get consistent colors throughout your entire set of images. However in situations like concerts, the lights are often changing colors which make this less of a benefit. As long as you are shooting RAW and not JPEG, you’ll be able to adjust your color temperature and tint in editing software like Adobe Lightroom.

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The Nikon equivalent to AI-Servo on Canon is AF-C. This is a continuous focus mode, which helps to track your subject and focus point as they move through the frame. When shooting quickly moving subjects like concert photographers almost always do, continuous focusing AF is a big benefit.A helpful technique for concert photographers to learn is back button focus, which allows you to set another button on your camera to be in charge of focusing. Check out my post on back button focusing where I explain it in detai

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Any DSLR will have a continuous shooting mode, where you’re able to take a ton of photos in succession. At first, you’ll probably accidentally take photos when you don’t mean to by pressing down the shutter just a little too long or too hard. You’ll quickly learn how to apply the right pressure to only shoot a bunch of frames in a row when you want to

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Your camera’s metering setting has no effect on the exposure you’re shooting in manual mode. If you’re using a different mode, like AV or TV, metering works by automatically changing settings on your behalf to get the correct exposure. However when looking through your viewfinder in manual, the meter can be used as a guide in figuring out how to expose your image well

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RAW images have some huge benefits over JPEG images. RAW files store much more information, which allows you to take your photos into an editing software like Adobe Lightroom and adjust white balance, exposure, and many other settings. This is an incredible advantage! You can get some of your settings wrong, or be slightly off, and still end up with a fantastic final photo. You’re also able to heavily adjust your shadows and highlights and retain a ton of detail, which makes editing much easier. Because of these abilities, RAW files are much larger than JPEG. Despite the size difference, it is not worth shooting in JPEG. SD and CF cards are inexpensive these days, and so are hard drives