Shooting a convention--need help

[watha]

I'm using a Nikon D 90 with the 18-105 lens and an SB 600 speedlight. I'm in the middle of a large convention hall with thousands of visitors. Some of the rooms are very brightly lit. But one room in particular, with lots of people using computer gear, is quite dimly lit. I want to shoot people and their computers, preferably without using flash, which causes a bit of unwanted glare. I plan to bring a tripod. I'm just looking for advice from more experienced shooters. Should I go for no flash, or are there flash techniques that will give me better results without too much of a glare problem? How would you handle this sort of situation? Please advise me. Thanks.

[autofocus]

I don't believe your lens is particularly fast, so you may have no choice but to use flash to stop the action...I would recommend using your flash with a diffuser bounced off a ceiling or wall. Probably best to shoot in "P" mode, and let the camera/flash make the exposure decisions for you. Always check your histogram to see if you'll need to bump up, or down your flash output. Good luck...you'll do fine

Vince

[Chip]

The more you zoom, the narrow the aperture gets, and the slower the shutter speed will need to be. Likely not a problem with the SB 600, since the flash will likely freeze the action for you. But if you're not able to freeze the action with a flash for some reason, then moving in closer and going wider might help.

You can also try rear curtain synch (it's a setting on the D90 itself). This will make the flash fire at the end of the exposure, which will make any movement look more natural than the normal (front curtain) synch.