Panasonic DMC FZ20

[jono_04]

Howdy all, i have just purchased a Panasonic DMC FZ20, Does any one else in here have one? I am after some tips on shooting live bands on stage and been able to capture the lighting used and the movement of the band!

Cheers Jono

[Photo-John]

Jono-
Welcome to PhotographyREVIEW.com. I know there are people her who have the FZ20 and FZ30. I'll see if I can't get someone who has the camera to come reply. However, what you're asking for is general photography technique advice. You might do better posting on the Help Files forum.

Concert photography is tough. You usually have very low light which makes it hard to get any photos, let alone photos of a moving subject. Professional music photographers spend as much on a lens as you spent on your camera in order to get good concert photos. I'm not trying to discourage you - just help you understand and adjust your expectations.

The two main problems you have are going to be holding your camera still, and freezing the action. When I've shot concerts I've been able to shoot as slow as 1/15th of a second. You'll lose some to camera shake at that speed. But if you stay relaxed, hold the camera steady, and shoot while you exhale, you can get some good ones. Of course, if the subject moves quickly, you'll still get a blurry photo. Sometimes that will be cool. Other times it will suck. There's a lot of luck in any kind of action photography.

Since I don't know what your photography knowledge level is, I'll stop now. You can ask more questions if you don't understand a thing I said. Better make your next post on the Help Files forum, though. I think you'll get a lot more help there. And I'll try to find someone who knows the camera well to help.

Good luck!

[Chunk]

I have an FZ20. I wouldn't choose this camera for that kind of shot. I find it quite noisy so I mainly shoot at 80 ISO. Even with the cameras max ISO of 400 you will be shooting pretty slow and wide open so you won't have too much creative control. You may like the noise in concert type photos. One aspect that will help you is the built in image stabilization. I leave that turned on all the time since I can't hold a camera steady anymore. Any low light photography I do is at 80 ISO with the camera on a tripod.
In any situations that allow flash, the camera has a decent reach and a slow sinc that can help.
Sorry if this sounds gloomy. I'm sure if you practice you'll soon be getting some better shots than I could in those situations.
In general the fz20 does have some very nice features and I've been happy with shots I've taken. Panasonic does seem to have corrected or lessened some of the fz20s limitations in the fz30.