Safety Tips in Richmond

I took a few pictures inside the Museum of the Confederacy and Hotel Jefferson, I visited. They were not always well lighted. When I took pictures without a built-up flash, I found them blurred. I was so excited about meeting with Nat, lost luggage and new country and city that I... forgot to take a tripod to use longer exposure. Using a flash had some disadvantages as well.

Keep in mind that a built in (or even additional) flash on most cameras can only light up an area between 3 - 6 m in front of the camera (10 - 20 ft, depends on the flash and DIN of your film). My camera's shutter opens and has to stay open for up to several seconds for enough light to hit the film to make an image at night/bad light. The problem: most people cannot hold a camera perfectly still for more than a small fraction of a second - usually more than 1/30 or 1/45 s. Just notice here that larger camera you have, easier you can hold it.

So, if you want to take pictures at night (except objects up to a few meters in front of your camera) you must use a tripod, never mind how good (and expensive) is your camera.

It is not so easy to choose good tripod, look :-):
SLIK tripods (Japan)
MANFROTTO tripods (Italy)
about tripods on photo.net