Best setting for a concert...bracketing?

Question

I guess kind of a double question. I'm going to a concert May 21st. What would be best exposure setting? In a non dslr camera can you bracket? Begining to think I can't. Isn't it true that when you set camera to either aperture priority or shutter priority one would compensate for the other to get propper exposure? I guess you can bracket on a dslr which I don't own. I own the Sony DSC-H2.

Answer 1

Try your spot meter on the main subject. Unless you are right on stage, anything else will grossly overexpose the band/singer, because it will be misled by all the darkness in the field.

You can bracket on your H2, although you may not be able to do this "automatically," so it will slow you down a bit. Haha! How spoilt we have become. What I am saying is that you will have to bracket on your 21st century electronic marvel the way we did before cameras even had light meters - one frame at the time.

Just use your exposure compensation by setting the EV up and down. For sake of speed, you might want to use full stop increments instead of the 1/3 stop that is available with a single click. Try shooting as soon as the lights go down and review your pictures immediately. If your H2 has the option to indicate the highlights that are overexposed, set that so you can check quickly and adjust. Once you find what works, meaning if EV -1.3 is the right exposure compensation, you can probably quit bracketing unless you notice that the lights are changing all the time.

You are correct about the aperture and shutter priority settings. These settings measure the light lever and set the EV ("exposure value," I think) and then make proporional adjustments to maintain that same EV. You can STILL bracket in one of these modes, though, since you will still be able to change the EV through exposure compensation as I described above.

Answer 2

bracket +1 and -1