Metropol

Right i've got a few gigs coming up and i'd love to get some decent photographs. To date i've just taken my mob and taken pics as it's been the safest option.
I have a canon 35mm camera it's a decent one and a standard digital one which takes okay pics.
Getting to the front of these gigs is no problem for me to get pics of the band as they are at small venues, but it can get a bit unruly in the pit. My bloke will not be happy if i break the Canon and i'm a bit unsure of the settings on the digital one ( i know my bloke moans at me for not reading the manuals and then misplacing them).
Also i'd like to get some decent shots of people in the pit from the Balconies.

What settings do you recommend and what digital camera do you recommend i'm after a new one and i will budget myself to spending upto £500 between now and September.

You can get an amazing camera for well under £500!

Get something with a decent optical zoom, and at least 5megapixels.

Fuji, Canon and Nikon are the best makes I've used. The Fuji lenses are remarkably good, even on the entry-level cameras.

I paid £220 for my Fuji Finepix about 2 months ago, and the results have been rather good for the price.

To add to the above advice, make sure you get a nice big memory card for it. The stuff supplied with cameras is tiny, and won't fit many decent sized pictures on.

And if you use a new camera - get used to it and its controls before taking it out on the road.

Get your memory cards from the internet. In places like Currys and Powerhouse they charge upto and over £50 for a middle of the road 250MB capacity (around 80 or 90 high resolution pictures), but I've got myself a 512MB XD card for my camera which cost around £25 (inc. p&p) from http://www.memorycards4less.co.uk and that holds around 150 high resolution pictures at a time.

The 16MB card which was supplied will hold a pathetic 6 high resolution pictures!