Well, after all of your great input, I still was too ill to go. This has been a very challenging illness.

Well, the ceilings are pretty high -- could be 30', and black. So no real bounce there . . .

Great photos, but especially LOVE the "Hold the Applause" photo :-)

Good point. Max aperture on prime lens is 1.8, and yes, 3.5-5.6 on the zoom.

Was asked by one of our pastors to take photos at a dinner celebration at our church tomorrow evening. I have a Nikon D5000, 35mm Nikkor prime, 18-200 Nikkor zoom, and a new speedlight (Nissin di866).

The event will be in the auditorium. No natural light, and lighting levels will vary, I presume (i.e., lights up while people are attacking the buffet line, down lower during the program portion).

I am a serious amateur, but don't know that much about lighting yet. And the other wrinkle is that I have been pretty ill the past three weeks -- missed the last two weeks of work and am only just starting to feel better in the last few days. So, if I hadn't been asked to take photos, I don't even think I'd be considering going to the event due to slow recovery from illness.

Ultimately, I am going to do what is best for my health. I have been trying to find someone else who would agree to take the responsibility -- so far no takers.

So, if I go through with this, how do I "keep it simple" for me and take some decent pictures. I can shoot in raw, and I know how to take a custom white balance, but not sure how to make best use of the speedlight -- just go with auto setting? And should I use the 35mm prime, to keep it simple for handheld?

Sorry for the long post, but figured you needed some background. Thanks for your input.

Went through that with neighbors some years ago. It all happens so fast . . .

If I open a picture in Elements (I have v9), and go to the Quick Edit panel with it, I can adjust shadows, highlights, midtones and a whole host of other stuff. I can also go to Layers and create an adjustment layer and do levels there. Are these two different ways of adjusting the photo really accomplishing the same thing? I realize that creating a layer has a different effect than quick edit, but do the quick edits have a different effect on the photo than the levels?

Gettysburg is a fascinating place to visit. Nicely done.

I used to live about 20 miles from the Ceylon covered bridge, in Adams county. pretty time of year there.

Transplanted Hoosier -- grew up on a farm in Wells County.

You are making me homesick . . .

I started reading this article, and I thought, "Some of these people look really familiar to me." I kept reading and looking at the photos and realized these are people from my home town in Indiana and the article was written by a photographer I know there!!!!! It is a small world.

That was very helpful. Thank you for posting.

Very nice -- love the sunset ones

I had the opportunity to buy a Gossen Luna-Pro F a few weeks ago. I thought it might help me to learn more about lighting, and I'm sure it could. Unfortunately for me, I am confused by the Gossen user manual.

Specifically, I don't understand the distinction between incident and reflected measurements. And how will using a light meter like this help me with metering, if I have a good grasp of how my camera's light metering options work?

Thanks for your tutelage :)