Going to the orchid show -- tips for success?

[Homebrew]

A week from today I'll be going to the annual orchid show at the New York Botanical Garden. And boy, if I can't get a few pretty photos there I ought to find another hobby!

That said, I'm looking to move beyond pretty photos and get some great ones. I seek your help. My equipment is in my sig, here's the other information I think is relevant: The show is indoors; wind is not a factor but in many areas natural light is less than if it were outdoors. I'll be able to get nice and close to a lot of the orchids, others will be overhead or back a bit. Obviously moving any of the flowers is verboten; I'm stuck with whatever backgrounds the show's designer give me. Monopods and tripods are prohibited.

I know I'll want a diffuser for my flash (I hope to MacGyver one from the tips I've picked up here). What else? If my lenses won't do the job I can rent a 50, 150 or even 180 mm macro lens from Adorama and pick it up on the way. I could also rent a ring light. I've never used extension tubes; how are those?

As for composition, I'll be somewhat limited by circumstances, of course. That said, if someone has been to a similar show and has some ideas of course I'd be grateful to hear them.

Thank you in advance for any insights you might lend.

[Car2n]

Well if monopods and tripods are prohibited you might as well forget about renting a macro lens. Those things are not hand held friendly.

[jgomez65]

I would recommend the extention tubes, as you won't need to get as close as you need to the flowers compared to a macro lense, yet you might be able to get the same shots.

See the one I took last week with an extention tube on this post:

Macro with Extention Tubes

Good luck and post some shots here

Jorge

[Johnsohk]

Get the Macro lens and use FLASH as that will ensure that you freeze the shot without tri or monopod. Experiment with aperture priority for best DOF at the fastest flash sync speed and you may also find that you can get the classic black background.
Good Luck
John

[Homebrew]

Thanks to all for the thoughts. I think I'm going to go with a set of Kenko tubes for this go-round -- my main interests lie in birding and portraits and this is just kind of a bonus so I think spending money and time on new lenses isn't the direction I want to go. If the pics turn out so-so, so be it. jgomez, it was your shots that put me over the top -- I don't even hope to get shots like that without a tripod, but I'll give it a shot. That said, in truth I'm kind of hoping that my better photos from the trip will be of flower scenes, rather than isolated flowers. That's just how I roll.

Usually the Botanical Gardens will also schedule a day or two for photographers, where they allow tripods. If they do that again perhaps I'll go the macro lens route.