Benefits of a good flash?

[gsgary]

Power

 

[kundalini]

Why not? I mount mine on a monopod, gives me all kinds of flexibility.

True, but do you always have an assistant to hold the said flash on monopod or do you posess the third arm that I have been trying to develop for the past XXXX years? I would dearly love to be able to hold the camera, extend the arm with flash in hand and scratch my balls at the same time. If no, then that lends itself to a lightstand and off camera flash. Shooting bugs and flowers with flash in hand is one thing, but adding a person in the scenerio is completely different.

You can parade all you like about the SB-400, but at the end of the day, it has severe limitations compared to a small price jump for the SB-600. I do not begrudge you in the least for promoting the SB-400, but you have to agree that it's not the end-all to be-all.

 

[Derrel]

A good flash,used appropriately, will make your indoor party photos much better than those shot with the on-board or "pop-up" flash unit. There are a number of pretty useful new accessories for flashes--like the previously mentioned Lumiquest 80/20 bouncer, as well as some of the old tried and true techniques like using an index card and rubber band to make a "bounce card".

Indoors, the simple slip-on diffusion cap, with the flash tilted up at 60 degrees, works much like the Lumiquest 80/20 does: about 60 percent of the flash goes up and is bounced off of the room's walls and ceilings,and maybe 40 percent goes toward the subject. In recent years, the web has been filled with DIY projects that show you how to make "a better bounce card", which is a search string you ought to try; most of these are made with craft foam and are affixed to the flash with rubber bands or velcro. There is also the Honl brand of ready-made accessories which kundalini mentioned.

There are about a zillion ways to use speedlight flash. Check out this site http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/

for a few articles talking about the how/why of on-camera speedlight flash. Also, check the strobist.com blog.

 

[PhotoXopher]

I do not begrudge you in the least for promoting the SB-400, but you have to agree that it's not the end-all to be-all.

Never said it was, but from what the original poster asked - it is all they need, and it's much more compact as well.

The only reasons not to get a more powerful flash are features, size and cost - other than that get the best flash you can afford. There's nothing my SB-400 can do that an SB-600 or greater cannot, however the same isn't true the other way around.