It seems weird that I've not shot a band at a gig yet considering I've been 30,000 feet in the air, sprawled miles of underground tunnels and caves, climbed snow capped mountains and then sled down with this camera so when a chance opportunity came up with a friend in a band who were performing at a sold out gig at the end of last month, I jumped right in 
I found the stage lighting to be quite hard to work with at first. It's constantly changing in intensity and colour so AV and TV modes would seem like the sensible thing to use but I actually found full manual to be the best and after some trial and error with the band playing before them I felt happy and was ready to go.
With a press pass the advantage was that I had a walkway between the crowd and the stage to move around with although it was only about 4 foot wide so nothing special, still, it was something considering the crowd area was jam packed and people had drinks in hand etc.
The musicians were constantly moving, playing guitars and other instruments. Choosing a single AF point was a constant change and I opted for the cross group type for quite a few shots whilst others were a single spot point with servo enabled as and when needed (mapped the DOF preview button to hold servo, works brilliantly).
The Sigma had no trouble locking AF in any light or following the AF area I told it to during servo tracking. The massive and bright viewfinder meant I was able to see that focus was satisfactory at all times as well.
Overall a great learning experience especially with that kind of lighting and ambience, definitely up for doing more and seeing how things progress!
Here is a selection of the 70 odd I uploaded. I went as low as 1/60th and as high as 1/200 ranging from ISO 1000 to 2500. They are all at f/1.4.
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Even some of the crowd got involved
I think the 35mm was the perfect choice for this venue anyway, the 85 would have been too long to get a good whole body comp and a wide would not have captured the drummer. A zoom would not have been fast enough either.
I found the stage lighting to be quite hard to work with at first. It's constantly changing in intensity and colour so AV and TV modes would seem like the sensible thing to use but I actually found full manual to be the best and after some trial and error with the band playing before them I felt happy and was ready to go.
With a press pass the advantage was that I had a walkway between the crowd and the stage to move around with although it was only about 4 foot wide so nothing special, still, it was something considering the crowd area was jam packed and people had drinks in hand etc.
The musicians were constantly moving, playing guitars and other instruments. Choosing a single AF point was a constant change and I opted for the cross group type for quite a few shots whilst others were a single spot point with servo enabled as and when needed (mapped the DOF preview button to hold servo, works brilliantly).
The Sigma had no trouble locking AF in any light or following the AF area I told it to during servo tracking. The massive and bright viewfinder meant I was able to see that focus was satisfactory at all times as well.
Overall a great learning experience especially with that kind of lighting and ambience, definitely up for doing more and seeing how things progress!
Here is a selection of the 70 odd I uploaded. I went as low as 1/60th and as high as 1/200 ranging from ISO 1000 to 2500. They are all at f/1.4.
1:
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6:
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19:
20:
21:
Even some of the crowd got involved
I think the 35mm was the perfect choice for this venue anyway, the 85 would have been too long to get a good whole body comp and a wide would not have captured the drummer. A zoom would not have been fast enough either.
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