Is it hard to use a speedlight?

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xSitara™

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Ok I know this may sound like a terrible question but I plan on buying one within the next two weeks, thing is I need it for a function i'm attending in Germany and i'm really worried that I may not know how to use it.

Are there any 580exII speedlight tutorials or anyone who can explain the basics please?

Sal.
 
Practice lots. Read about bouncing the flash and look into getting a diffuser for the flash.
 
If you point it at walls, make sure they're white, otherwise you'll get colour casting on the subject. i.e.. point it at a coloured wall and you'll end up with orange faces... that kind of thing.

Diffusers are cheap, in fact you can make one yourself using white tissue paper covering the top of the flash gun.
 
There is some very useful information on flash photography here - http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/. It's not about the 580EX especially but great on flash techniques in general.

Personally I had quite some difficulty the first time I used a 580EX and ended up with rather poor results. I now prefer to use manual exposure for the ambient light and let the camera/flash work out the flash exposure. However, it is important to understand the need to apply Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) whenever the situation requires. It's rather like having to use Exposure Compensation (EC) when shooting in an autoexposure mode without flash. If you shoot with autoexposure you will need to be prepared to twiddle with both EC and FEC depending on your creative wishes and the subject/scene before you. By shooting with manual exposure I can lock down one variable and then I only have one demon to fight rather than two.

If your function is an indoor event during the evening then I suggest a manual exposure of around f/2.8, 1/60, 800 ISO (maybe even 1600 ISO) and then bounce the flash to provide the additional light required for the scene. You may do well to get a CTO (colour temperature orange) gel, or an orange coloured omnibounce type diffuser, to match the light from the flash to the (tungsten I assume) room lighting.

Here's an example at 1/100, f/2.8, 1600 ISO with bounced flash....

20080816_222531_7342_DPP.JPG


and another from a different occasion at 1/60, f/2.8, 1600 ISO with bounced flash...

20080829_202854_2980_LR.jpg


Basically set your manual exposure to pick up the ambience of the room, but just a fraction underexposed, and then let the flash fill out the room and make your subject pop a little.
 
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