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Beyond the Camera - External Flash
This section is about the physical hardware of external flash - for details on flash photography, see the Flash Photography section.
Your digital camera will almost certainly have a built in flash (unless you are lucky enough to have a top of the range Nikon or Canon DSLR, or daft enough to think a mobile phone can ever possibly count as a camera)
Although the built in flash is OK for the odd bit of fill-in light in bright daylight, they are far from ideal to use indoors as the primary light source. You should only use them after you have exhausted every other possibility (increasing the ISO setting, long exposure, turning on a desk lamp etc). Apart from the fact they are not very powerful, they only provide direct light which is very unflatering and leads to that bane of the photographers life, red-eye.
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If your camera has a hot shoe (see picture on the right), it can take an external flashgun. All DSLRs support what's known as 'dedicated' flash - this means it works closely with the cameras exposure system to provide the exact amount of light required (see section of flash photography for more information). So when buying an external flash you need to make sure you get one that is compatible with your particular make of camera. You should also make sure it has a tilt and swivel head which will allow you to bounce the light off ceilings and walls.
Names to look out for (in addition to the camera manufacturers own dedicated models) are Metz and Sigma.
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For more information, look at our section on Flash Photography.
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Photographs
This is a site about photography so I'm sure you are expecting to see plenty of pictures.
For now, why not take a peek at the flickr galleries belonging to the two authors of this site.
Colin's Flickr Page
Phil's Flickr Page
"Faith in your photographic abilities is the willingness to venture into darkness without a flash."
- Cliff Hollenbeck
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