Jerome, Flash photography is tricky. With the flash on camera, you'll nearly always end up with the deer in the headlights look on your subjects. But there are ways of making the light from an on-camera flash a bit more pleasing. One guy made a diffuser out of an old translucent 35mm film can and a bounce card from cardboard and aluminum foil. Works well.
Try this link: <http://194.100.88.243/petteri/pont/How_to/hc_Bounce_Built-In_Flash/a_Bounce_the_Pop-up.pdf> Note: The link does not work for me right now. It's not unlikely that the author has taken the page down. Or maybe his webserver is down... Google has the page cached. Search for the two words FinnBounce Smelfen and click on the Cached link under the page description. You'll find most of the information you need. Companies like StoFen make overpriced ($20 for an injection molded piece of Tupperware) plastic tubs that fit your hot-shoe flash (such as 380EX, 480EX...) which diffuse the light that comes out of the flash. This makes the light softer. There are also small softbox-like gizmos that attach to the flash with Velcro strips. Those work quite well. What a hot-shoe flash will buy you is more flash power. Your flash will reach further. It'll also make it easier to use accessories to diffuse or bounce the light. And with a wireless remote, an umbrella, light stand, and some odds and ends you can get a quite portable lighting system out of a hot-shoe flash. But hot-shoe flashes can also drain your bank account faster than you might like. They're damn expensive light bulbs!! If you are just looking to try out flash photography, I'd suggest you keep your eyes open for a used Canon Speedlite 380EX. It's a fine flash. It does not have variable power, but it does support TTL metering. I found mine on photo.net for $50. It sounds like you'll benefit from paging through Barbara London, "Photography", 7th edition, Chapter 12 - Lighting. Available at your local bookstore... Tom On 7/25/06, Jerome Davin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I finally got a 17-40 L to go with my 20D. Any suggestions on its use for indoors with the pop up flash? On P mode, it is always 1/60 f/4. It seems to work quite well but wonder if there is any tips/etc on using this combo? Would I see a huge difference if using a 430EX instead?
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