I have had both personal and professional reasons to shoot with no flash in a low indoor light situation lately. Of most import was my daughter's graduation. She was speaking and I wanted to get a crisp image of her at the podium.
I have the Canon 7D which has very good performance at the ISO3200 range. I set the camera up for incandescent White Balance, ISO3200 and I took some test shots with people to determine the best exposure, which I set at Manual, 1/250 sec at f/2.8. The resulting images were crisp but with nice blur on the background, and good exposure and white balance.
Interestingly, I coached another graduate's mom whom I knew on setting up her camera for the same situation. We'll see how her images came out. I know her lens was not as fast, but even at 1/50 second, a good image often results from a stage image.
I often shoot wedding reception or community event images in similar settings, and the challenge is always how to balance any added light with ambient. I have gelled strobes and on camera flash, which often works, but it's tough to get the color right.
The first person that invents an inexpensive color meter and corresponding flash adjustment set to balance off camera flash with ambient will make a killing in the wedding market.
Great picture of your daughter at the podium! My camera has ISO 3200 capability but is noisy at that level. ISO 1600 isn't too bad.
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