Quote Originally Posted by Mark Elberson
Jan had some terrific advice. Start with what you know. If you need to capture the moment then use on-camear E-TTL with bounce. At least you'll likely get what you need that way. I understand that you want to learn how to use off-camera flash. Like Jan said, start with one flash. See what it can and cannot do. Each light in a setup has a specific task (Key, Fill, Separation, Background, etc). I know the temptation is to use them all but sometimes one or two will do. Try using one umbrella/softbox and see what it does for you. Move it around and see how that affects the light and shadows.

Yep, I think what happened was I started doing more than I was ready for and ended up worse off than when I started months ago! Instead of moving forward slowly, I took a giant leap and ended up with a mess!

Tonight I started with the one softbox and then added a light and tomorrow night am going to work on that again to figure out how to eliminate shadows I don't want and maybe figuring out how to get some that I do want for certain affects.

Thanks so much for your help, Mark!

Denise