No, if I'd known I coulda got away with a tripod, I would have... the exhibit was nearly empty - was it old by the time of Celebration Europe? Anyway, my Canon EOS 5D has no built-in flash (although I've never gotten very good flash pics at a SW exhibit due to reflections) and I was going strictly handheld, so I had no choice but to open the ISO out to 3200 to minimize shake. Trouble is, it lets in all sorts of pixel noise,plus some colorful striping artifacts that my previous EOS20D didn't do. To minimize this, I set the camera for multi-shot and hold the button down for (usually) 3 identical shots. Later I align them in Photoshop, with the bottom copy at 100% opacity, the second faded to 50% and the third to 33%. The different noise of each copy averages out and minimizes nicely. The more copies you can do this with, the better the result. There is commercial software like Neat Image and Noise Ninja which do excellent noise removal, but when detail is paramount, I prefer my method because it corrects an image by adding more "good" information, rather than the software removing "bad" information and replacing it with manufactured data. Obviously my method only works on still life with the luxury of a few seconds for multiple shots!
All this is academic, however, because I just saw the other Expo photos here, not to mention the RPF Paris photos, and I feel like Wayne and Garth in front of Alice Cooper... "We're not worthy!" Maybe my shots offer a difference because they aren't blown out by flash or too-close focus like many cameras do. In any case, thanx for the kind words!
- Ken -