For Camera Experts: Ideal settings for indoor pictures?

Question

Heading to the Dayton Airforce Muesum tomorrow and most of the airplanes are indoors, under low lighting. I've taken practice shots inside my apartment with no lights on in the evening and I have the camera set at the following settings:

Apeture: F/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
Flash: ON

Are these settings good enough for indoor shots under low lighting?

Here are a couple sample pictures I liked from my trip. Indoor photography is the hardest!

http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/data/603/3249planeunderbluelights-med.JPG

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http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/data/603/3249picture13.JPG

Answer 1

Lots of other good answers; here is my input, since I have taken photos at an Air Force museum near us. Try f8 with your flash if you are close to a display (say no more than ten feet away). For shots of something further away, try bracing the camera against a wall, on a railing and slowly squeeze the shutter button slowly using a f-stop of f8 or more to get greater depth of field. Better yet set the self timer, and place the camera on something, hopefully during a long exposure no one will walk in front of the camera. The inside lighting might be tungsten, so don't be too surprised if there is a slight blueish tint to the pictures. If they have displays behind a glass, they use fluorescent lighting, so without a flash the pictures will have a slight green tint to them. Have fun.

Answer 2

Having taken such pictures in airplane hangars the challenge is getting as much of the plane in the frame. May I suggest a wide angle 24mm lens. I can hope that you are to use an external flash and not what flash came with the camera. Indoor pictures need a flash which coverage extends over the 6-12 feet the camera's internal flash works.

Answer 3

if you have a camera that can do high ISOs, take advantage of it. 1/20 should be the minimum shutter speed that you'll need, from the way you make the lighting sound. Keep the aperture as open as possible, too. I personally don't like using flashes, but if you have to use it, make sure you have a pretty slow shutter speed to go along with it (1/20-1/40).

Answer 4

open up your ISO to 800 or more.

if you can't a tripod helps for exposures slower than 1/60