Hi Ralph,
RJ gave the best advice. You need to get the flash off of the camera. When you shoot with the flash on camera your image is really going to look just like a snapshot from a poiunt and shoot camera because the lighting is the same.
I would suggest getting it of camera and either using a reflector or at the very least one of the many softboxes that are made for the small flash guns. Another option is to bounce the flash off of the ceiling but you will need to fill in the eyes if you do this. I believe lumiquest has one adapter that allows some of the ligh out of the top to bounce off of the ceiling and some to go out of the front so basically you are getting fill and main from the same flash. I have never tried it so I can't say it does or doesn't work.
If you plan to do a lot of photography along these lines I would suggest getting a Vivitar 283 with the varipower module or a Vivitar 285 and a flash slave for it. Actually, you might even want to get two of them. They are pretty cheap on e-bay and even brand new mail order they are relatively inexpensive. You would also need to get a slah meter. You can also get adapters that will attach to a light stand and allow you to put your hotshoe mounted flashes on them. Of course you can use the small, lightweight light stands for this and it will make your lighting gear bag pretty small. It will be more than just carrying around your speed light, but it will allow you to create some much better images.
|