I work with mainly fast primes, but always carry a flash. Flash looks best to me when it is combined with ambient lighting - either as fill outdoors in daylight, or when shooting at high iso with ambient lighting indoors.
Briefly comment on the best flash techniques and gear for your work.
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My digicams dont have external provision for flash. Being limited to the pop-up flash, I prefer to use the higher ISO, even with its noise problems, and optical stabilization rather than flash for almost every occasion. The flash is too harsh, generates red eye (for humans) and worse for animals. And on-board flash is not at all flattering for portrait work.
I do not do a lot of flash work, but I do like the on-camera flash for quick fill work. I have a larger unit but a lot of times it is just too much bother to put it on unless I am doing something specific like stopping action. Also, at least at my ol' age 63, and this is my complaint with all the modern cameras, they do so much that I need to carry the instruction manual to reference anything. But yes...modern flash photography can do wonders!!
Using a DSLR makes adjusting the ISO settings easy when lighting is low. The trade off of a little noise is no contest when compared to a flash shot. The ambient lighting usually is what makes the shot interesting. If I have to get the shot no matter what, then I use a little SB-50DX for fill.
I use fill flash for everything. Shooting on Maui for 3 years, where there is constant Sun, you simply manually control the exposure, and let the flash give that "depth" to your shot, that the average tourist (mostly likely using their latest digital toy) can't.
I find the best results with the D70 and a SB800 is using Rearsync, but if your subject moves... Using the SB800 with a very low light it seems the distance is too short to reach the subject...but if you add a few SB600's (I have 4)you get amazing results.
Automatic cameras are less creative and more limit to it. Unless people knows how to deal with automatic camera to create a beautiful pictures. I often use pro digital camera with manual setting. I believe I can control build-in flash better with manual setting.