jimmya Loc: Phoenix

Hi Bill. I've been involved in several places where I would go from out doors to in doors and therefore have to change from flash to no flash.

I happened upon an idea that works for me.

In my manual settings I normally keep 1/200, f/5.6. This seems quite good for flash photography at the range of 8-feet or so.

Our doors I would use program or shutter priority. Walk indoors, flip to manual, pop the flash and fire away.

1/200 being my sync speed also holds down any movement I might have with my hands. f/5.6 is about right for the 8-feet I mentioned.

It works for me.

georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

This should be a response to the nice shot by Goofynewfy: I think you lucked out there was no motion blur at 1/40 of a second. I tried that on a series of group photos and got similar results in maybe one out of 10 shots, there was always a blurred hand, a turning head, a changing smile on the other nine. I tried to up the shutter speed to freeze the motion but lost the ambient light in the background. I put the camara in full auto and it solved the problem by using iso 6400. Actually they turned out better than expected, if you have a lot of megapixels the software can get rid of the noise later...but not always.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Thanks-Not a lot of luck needed, just make sure they are relatively still. I've gone down to 1/15th in one really dark venue. The flash freezes most of the subject movement.
Alternatively, you can use the slow shutter and intentional camera movement to blur the background. I shot a whole wedding reception in black & white that way for an art director I did a lot of work with.

These days, with the better high ISO quality, this type of shot is a lot easier to do, if people would just take the time to learn how to do it. Having high ISO doesn't mean you can leave you flash at home. It helps with quantity, but not the quality of the light.

Weddingguy Loc: British Columbia - Canada

My preference . . . and it definitely helps!
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=lite+genius&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Top+Nav-Search=

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

Lumiquest has a similar modifier that I use,
Bob.

smcaleer Loc: Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Great link, JR1. Thank you for posting. I never use flash because I never have grasped how to. This link is already helping me understand some basic things.

DavidM Loc: New Orleans, LA

Bill, I just ran into a similar situation while learning to use my flash. This helped me understand:

Canon DSLRs is by default set up to use the Av and Tv modes for fill flash. You set the aperture (Av) or shutter speed (Tv), and the DSLR will adjust the shutter speed (up to two seconds) or aperture to expose the background for the ambient light. Flash power is adjusted to just fill in the foreground. However, most Canon DSLRs have a custom setting that let you change the shutter speed constraint in Av mode.

In manual mode (M) you can set both the aperture and the shutter speed to whatever you want. In Canon DSLRs, the E-TTL-system in M mode will measure the light reflected by the foreground subject and adjust flash power to expose the foreground correctly. To get fill flash in M mode, set the aperture and shutter speed to correctly expose the background, and the E-TTL-system will take care of the foreground.