Best ISO for my Cannon SD 950 IS indoors photo

Question

What would be the best ISO to use to take pictures indoors in an art museum where they don't allow flash?

I have a 12 Megapixel Cannon SD 950IS camera.

Should I turn the flash off and set it to auto ISO?

How about in an museum that allows flash?

Thanks

Answer 1

Camera have gotten better over the years, depending on how dark it is you could try 400. If that is dark 800 but when you hit 1600 ISO you will see some noticeable grain.  

Answer 2

It depends on how bright the lights are.  With my hands, I can get tolerable quality shots with a 1/4 second or faster exposure, but they don't look perfect unless they're about 1/125 second or faster.  Set whatever ISO will give you a reasonable shot time.  Also, my camera doesn't have image stabilization so you might get away with a longer exposure and therefore lower ISO number.  

Answer 3

Really depends on the lighting. I'd set the ISO manually rather than let the camera adjust it in auto. I would start off with 200. If this produces blurry shots, I'd step it up to 400. In darker rooms you might need to go up to 800. At the last resort I would use 1600 because taking pictures at this setting would be very noisy and image quality degrades significantly. I think you can also set it to 400 and not adjust it too much up or down. Usually you can take pictures quite well at this setting, without blur and also image quality is still good.