advice for external flash newbie

[mfricovsky]

Jabber, if you haven't already, definitely checkout strobist.com, specifically the Lighting 101 link which I think is on the right side. There's tons of info in there from beginning to end.

Also, not to make ya feel bad, but I realized eventually that the Speedlights, 430, 580, etc are reaaaaaally over-priced. I fell into the hype myself and bought a 580EXII and later after taking some lighting workshops, etc, found that for about $80 on ebay you can buy a SunPak AF5000, or equivalent and have the same great manual control over the flash... assuming you'll only be using it off camera. I don't believe it has TTL, ETTL, etc, but now that I almost never shoot on camera, I haven't used the TTL anyway! Wow, I've kicked myself a few times for this. I could've bought another AlienBee for the price difference! But now if you feel like trying out two strobes, checkout ebay for a fully manual one and you can probably get a new one for under $100... plus I've heard that SunPak actually makes the internals for canon and nikon flashes. another DOH! for me. lol. not 100% sure that's true.

once you get a few, get a few lightstands & umbrellas (which are also relatively cheap) you can experiment and have some great fun. Enjoy

[jabber]

Great--looking forward to it!