[The Jannie]

Yay! My first contribution!
If you'd like to dig around my Flickr album :

The Enid and Secret Green at the Enidi convention 18th September 2010 - a set on Flickr
The Enid at Farnham Maltings 8/10/2010 - a set on Flickr

you'll find shots from concerts. The lighting was generally awful so I was using 1600ISO, an MF Tokina 60-300 and my standard 18-55WR wide open and hoping for the best. The earlier concerts in the other sets were generally better lit and I used my Fuji S100FS - since replaced by the K10D.

I've now got an old 135mm f2.8 Vivitar to try at the December concerts and the Tokina has been replaced by a Pentax 80-320. The band have promised a new lighting rig for the forthcoming concerts, so here's hoping it's brighter than before.

[eddie1960]

Pick Up a 50 1.7 or 1.4, good focal length at shows, the 135 should be good as well, a 100 2.8 is ideal though not as fast as the 50 1.2 even with a doubler attached, If you're really lucky you might find one of the 85 1.8 or 1.9 at a good price (i haven't yet)
the problem with the zooms is even at the shortest length they are pretty slow (3.5) and at the long lengths too slow for all but a very well lit venue (of which i find very few)
of course even a kx or kr could solve the problem for me for the most part but that k5 really is the siren call at the moment (that or a return to Tri-x or the fuji 400 pushed to 3200 and forget the digital for a while)

[The Jannie]

The thing about zooms is not only that they have small maximum apertures (in the price range I call home) but as they have bucketloads of elements and air-to-glass surfaces they eat light. That's why I went for the old Vivitar - f2.8 and better transmission value in one. I just hope it's about the right length as the first concerts are at venues I haven't visited before!