do NOT attempt to shoot lightning unless you are inside a house with walls, plumbing and wiring, or inside a hard topped car not touching anything metal connected to the car or house - all other situations are potentially lethal within 8 miles of a storm.
wide aperture lenses such as 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.8, 135mm f/2.0, 70-200mm f/2.8 for full frame cameras
camera with spot metering and good performance at high ISO
image stabiliser if possible as often using shutter speeds of 1/125th sec.
timing is important, watch for patterns/sequences of lighting, moving away from an obscuring microphone, etc
no flash allowed:
use ISO 800-3200 if gives reasonable noise results - usually 1600 but lower if you want some movement with longer shutter speeds such as 1/15th sec (with image stabiliser).
manual exposure and focus (lock AF) as light levels may be too low for timely AF
tungsten WB usually
flash allowed:
use of Slow Sync - 1st sync to capture face in light vs 2nd sync to capture movement across a stage;
relatively wide aperture for narrow DOF thus low ISO 100-400 at ~1/8th sec;
use it sparingly to avoid distracting performer and audience; consider Stofen diffuser / bounce flash;
Lulu.com - online site allows you to self-publish photobooks, calendars, etc by generating a print-ready pdf
Momento.com.au - create your own photo book using their free pdf tool & they will print, bind & deliver a book from it, and allow others to purchase it.
Blurb - allows others to preview and purchase your book online if you wish
My Reflections - Australian company - your book is not hosted on their website for sale to others
PhotoBooksWA - Australian company - your book is not hosted on their website for sale to others - mainly hardback A4 books, plus calendars, posters, etc.
PanoTools - freeware but you need to do a lot of manual work. You can buy an interface for this at www.ptgui.com
PanaVue Image Assembler - not freeware, but provides very high stitching accuracy and manual stitch point correction. Allows for vertical stitching of photo rows. Stitches individual photos with extremely size differences. Handles camera tilt in the elevation angle (deviation from the horizontal direction) - a feature most other stitchers do not have.
automatic correction for images with EXIF data of camera and lens which matches its database but RAW Shooter Essentials creates jpegs with EXIF data that is not expected by PTlens and thus such jpegs won't work unless you remove the added manufacturer name from the EXIF data of the camera.
Stephen Westin's vector graphic chart - free - should be printed as large as possible (17×22 inches (A2) minimum; 24×26 inches (A1) if possible for 8+ megapixel cameras)
file recovery software for when you can't read your image files on your memory card: