Going on vacation- need advice

[gardengirl13]

My husband is writing his thesis and we're going to the Mississippi Delta and Memphis for research. I plan on taking tons of photos on the trip and was wondering how to get great shots inside juke joints and bars with the A610. I don't want to use a flash. Is there any way this camera can handle this? I don't need all the shots to be crystal clear, I want a variety of old B&W grainy shots and some clear ones in both B&W and color. I'm thinking of leaving it at the hotel and just bringing in my 35mm to shoot at 1600ISO. But I would like to try to use the digital.

[Tsmith]

Shoot at ISO 400 and hold it steady as possible. I've managed pretty good shots with my A610 handholding at 1/15 sec.

[BullittMan]

Also try to find something to lean on, or steady your arms. I also find that I take better pictures at slow shutter speeds when i take a deep breath in, and let it halfway out, make sure my shot is lined up how I want it and press the shutter button. Then breath out when it's done exposing.

[Diminished29]

I have an answer, but it might not be what you want to hear. Bar room scenes with this camera ISN'T going to be easy, but it is possible. I took 4 pictures to try my best and give you a plausible bar room environment.

Both shots we're down with the room only being lit by a small desklamp at my computer with a 60watt bulb and of course my 19" lcd which was also on giving a small bit of light to the area.

In this first picture I used ISO 50, f2.8 with full flash power and a shutter of 1/50 to give you a good idea of how large the room is.

In the second picture I used Av mode to let the camera give me a viable shutter speed. Needless to say my A610 was pretty stingy in that regard and gave me 0.4 of a second. Though I'd imagine you could get by with a 1/4 or 1/8 setting, but you'd be underexposing for sure and would have to rely on PS to come to the rescue.

So basically what your looking at for decent results handheld (though I did try and stedy myself on the top of a chair, I think it helped a little and as BullettMan said I held my breath while pushing the shutter.)

(Picture #2)

ISO400
f2.8 (no more than this seriously!)
shutter speed 1 second - 0.4 seconds for PROPER exposure.
Exposure compensation +-0
Vivid Settings
Tungsten lightning here though you maybe using Floresent in the bar (just experiment)

ALL IMAGES ARE SEEN AS THEY CAME FROM THE CAMERA...ONLY BEEN RESIZED TO 800x600!

[Diminished29]

Here are the last 2 pictures these we're done in manual mode so that I could change the shutter from 0.4 in the second to 1/4 and 1/8

#3 - same as number #2 except again manual mode was used with a 1/4 shutter speed

#4 - same with a 1/8 shutter speed