I have, for a few years now, been shooting for
theatre with my Nikon D70s. I always recommend Nikon, some people recommend Canon, ultimately it doesn't matter except that you should choose one of the major brands. Here is a link to my website with lots of my photos:
IceWolf Photography. I am actually saving for a new camera for next season at the
theatre, probably a D700. As technology has developed it has become apparent that you really want a camera with a CMOS chip these days. The Less expensive CCD chips have done well, but in the low light situations CMOS can handle higher sensitivity with lower noise than CCD which is important when shooting in the
theatre.
One of the big things that you want, which has been mentioned in passing is that you want a fast
lens and a camera with a high sensitivity chip. However, more important than a fast
lens is a good tripod. I have achieved great photos with lenses that would not be considered fast, and that is all because having a good tripod. You never want to shoot handheld as you will have slow
shutter speeds.
I would look at the
Nikon D90 as an entry
point into the dSLR world. It is the lowest end Nikon that comes with a CMOS sensor. With a List price of $999, it is a great jumping off
point, in fact it is less than what I paid for my D70s when I got it. I would imagine there is also a Canon equivalent, I just don't keep up with them.
In terms of glass (lenses), you will want to start with one or two lenses that
cover a good focal range. There is a D90 kit that comes with an 18-105mm VR
lens for $1300. While this sounds like a great deal, it isn't the best
lens, but it is a good starting
point. If you feel like you can make more of an investment, I would suggest buying just the camera body (not in a kit) and picking 2 good lenses. One that I would recommend for
theatre photos as well as everyday use is the
Sigma 50-150 f2.8. While it isn't the cheapest
lens, it will get you far. Also, Sigma makes very good lenses, and they make them for most of the major camera brands. I can make more
lens recommendations if you like.
Here are some other things to think about. If you are going to get a dSLR, don't be fooled by high megapixel counts. In the DX and FX (35mm equiv.) formats you won't
gain any
image quality from anything higher than 12MP. Why? At higher resolutions what you start to see is not more
image but the imperfections in your lenses. The sensor and
image area is just to small to benefit from more pixels. So, you don't need to go out and buy super high resolution just because you can.
Once you are all set up with a camera,
lens, and tripod you can start to think about actually getting the shots. If you don't have some basic photo knowledge, now is the time to
pick up a
book ad do a little reading about things like lights metering and white balancing. If you want I can go into the basics, but even that can get long. Just know that often you have to
play with the light metering modes and the
white balance settings on your camera to achieve the exposures you want. Also, if you are at all familiar with Photoshop or other professional
image editing programs (lightroom, aperture,
etc.) I would suggest shooting in RAW or RAW+JPEG. RAW images can be tweaked amazingly well in post (almost to the
point of re-shooting the
image), which is useful for
theatre photos, though it adds an extra step to your workflow.
When you go out to shoot, grab a couple big storage cards. You will want 4GB or larger cards. Take LOTS of photos. It doesn't cost you anything to take a lot of photos so just keep shooting. Sure, you have to sort through them later, but I would rather have too many images than no good ones. As for settings, I keep my camera in Auto
ISO mode, so when the
shutter speed drops below 1/30 of a second it kicks up to higher ISOs until it can get to a faster
shutter speed. Most of the time auto
white balance works for me, but sometimes i find that switching to
tungsten WB is better (especially for amber heavy shows).
I am sure that there is more that you would like to know, so please feel free to PM, email, IM or just post questions, I would be happy to answer.