Can you take flash photography at a concert?

Im going to a Panic At The Disco concert in May and I want to know if the flash photography bothers the band or not... There's flashing lights already anyways... So can I use flash?

All venues are different: some allow it, others do not. Some places do not allow photography at all. Today, however, most places do allow flash photography, so more than likely it should be fine. The only times where flash photography is usually prohibited is at a play, ballet, or other place where the people on stage need lots of focus.

To be sure, check the venue's website and see their policies.

If your ticket does not say, "No Cameras or Recording Equipment Allowed", then you probably can.

You might want to check with the venue before you photograph the band.

If you can then you want to get as close to the band as possible cause your flash will not reach them from far away. Also, be aware that even with your flash it will still be difficult to capture a good picture since it will be so dark... you need slow shutter speeds to capture good photos in the dark, but because of all the movement you will come out with blurry photographs.

Good luck :o)

Even if you can, using a point and shoot the flash only travels about 10 feet, so you'll just light up the atmosphere and not get the band. The lights on stage are usually as bright as sunlight. Turn off the flash,use a high ISO, hold your canera stable (not at arms length), exhale and shoot.

As already mentioned, if you have a small compact camera rather than dSLR with external flash, the light you'll produce will be pretty ineffective.

As has also been mentioned, a slow shutter speed will result in blurry images which isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on what you're trying to capture and the movement is mostly of the artist rather than the stage as a whole.

My advice would be to set your camera to "Shutter Priority" (normally the S or T setting) and shoot no slower than 1/10 second. The camera will adjust the other parameters as best it can to accomodate that shutter speed.

Shoot lots.

Have an experiment before the concert with various ISO settings as the higher you go, the greater the detrimental effect on image quality. See how high is acceptable to you before the image becomes too grainy.