Concert shooting

This is a really, really tough one. Shooting concerts is hard, even with the best equipment. You need a good location, a fast lens, and excellent high ISO performance. Most of that is stuff you won't have with your A85. The A85 is a good, solid digital camera. But it's going to be noisy at high ISO, the lens isn't really very fast, and I doubt you're getting good access, unless you're at really small shows.

Here are some recommendations. You probably need to use your camera's manual exposure mode to ensure you have the fastest shutter speed possible. Set your ISO at the highest setting - probably ISO 400 - and try to get a shutter speed of at least 1/30th of a second. You can use shutter priority or full manual. Either way you'll be able to control the shutter speed. Next, if the lights are changing, watch them and try to shoot during the brightest lighting. That will give you the sharpest shots. Set your focus for manual, get it focused on the singer, and leave it alone. Finally, try to brace the camera against something - anything to hold it steady and get sharp shots. The musicians will be moving. There's nothing you can do about that. But you don't want to be adding to the problem with your own body movement. Last, but certainly not least, turn off the flash. Just don't use it. Let the stage lights be your lighting. You probably won't be close enough for the flash to work anyway. And if it does work, it's not nice lighting. Stage lighting, when you get it right, is very, very nice.

Use all the above as a general fomula. Experiment with shutter speeds and find out how slow you can get away with. As I said in the beginning, concert photography is hard even when you have pro equipment. Most pros who shoot concerts for a living have specialized, fast aperture lenses that cost $800 and up. So don't expect your A85 to deliver Rolling Stone photos. But if you practice the tecniques above, you should improve your photos.