I hope you mean 16GB cards and not 16MB
I don't know at times... I still have some 4Mb cards kicking about that confuddle me!?!?
As to flash? I don't think that a big 'off-camera' accessory flash with a GN of 140 or so, is really all that appropriate for a 'bit' of 'fill-in'.. I have a couple of old 'electronic' accessory flashes from my film cameras, used for such purposes, often with paper diffusers, and their GN's are outstripped by the 'lowly' GN12 offered in the pop-up on my Digi!
I will confess, I tend to avoid flash photography these days, and digital, giving me 'film-speeds', at the touch of a button, shot by shot, I could only dream of, when 400ASA was considered 'fast' has made me even less affectionate towards it. But I'm primarily a 'recordist', I like to capture what I 'see' rather than make what I see 'artificially' first....
There's two basic reasons to use flash; first is that you don't have enough light to get a 'exposure' of what you see.. its too dark; so to get an exposure of what you see under 'ambient light'. Chuck in more light with a flash, and you don't get what you see, you get what the flash, instantaneously creates 'artificially'... not the photo you had hoped to get when you looked at the scene in front of you. So to get that; you don't need flash, you need a wider aperture, a slower shutter, or a higher ISO, and if you STILL cant make an exposure, with a modern Digi ramped to ISO 'Hi' on a tripod with a shutter up to 30 seconds or more, even with a kit lens as slow as f3.5, can you actually see ANYTHING in the ambient light to start with?
Second reason; whether you have enough light or not, you DON'T actually want the scene you see under ambient light, you want something 'different'..... fill-in is an example of this; you look at back-lit model on the beach, and their face s in shadow, and you WANT to remove that shadow, you DON'T want what you 'see' . So now you are using artificial light to create an alternative image.. and the trouble with 'flash' is that it is an instantaneous 'flash' that exists for only a fraction of a moment; you have to know how that light will change the scene you are looking at, and you have to imagine it in your minds eye, because it isn't there when you are looking through the view-finder!
Which is why, especially to a newby I don't recommend a flash as all that 'important' in their gadget bag. If there isn't enough light to get what they see in front of them, then they aren't going to get it. full stop. In that scenario, flash is just giving false hope, mis-direction, and often bad photo's, with little 'clue' even as to what has made them 'bad', other than 'I used flash'?
If they don't want what they see in front of them, then fair enough. But; its an almost independent art, a specialisation in photography, where IF that's the sort of thing you want to do, the camera and other kit becomes almost secondary, primary tool IS the artificial lighting, and the starting point for learning that art is not a flash, its a constant light source you can see, in real time, playing on your subject, so you can observe how the light falls and how it shifts the shadows, contrasts and emphasis, AS you move the light source about. Only when you have acquired that 'skill' and can picture in your head how the light will fall, before it is switched on, does flash start to become 'useful', and an aid rather than a hindrance.
In the 'rankings' of purchase priority then, I rate flash as a 'specialist' bit of equipment, and about as important as other gadgets you might never use, let alone need, like a big-stoppa filter, or a grey-grad or an extension tube, not something as fundamentally 'useful' as a camera support, that is used almost across the board in so many situations and so many areas of 'specialisation' and is a genuine aid to better photography, not just odd special occasions or certain situations.
And yes, one of the reasons I probably try and avoid it is because I AM crap at flash photography!, But still, I don't expect every-one to share my opinion, but I hope they can understand the logic behind it.
