Strobist 102 Lessons with David Hobby is where I would start []


As for the TTL and Triggers, Unless you are shooting "run&gun" stye, manual mode would be the easiest. So without TTL, InfinityGadget just came out with their new Cactus V5 wireless triggers which are so far reviewed to be excellent "dumb" wireless triggers (I'll be replacing my V4's soon). It looks like they've greatly improved the build so it's not as fragile as it was as before. And of course when it comes to manual flashes you can get pretty good ones for fraction of the price of TTL flashes! Vivitar285HV and YN560 would both be $80-100 each.


*edit* - If I were choose between Vivitar285HV and YN560 now, I would choose YN560 since it has a built in optical trigger and the Vivitar doesn't. It's very convenient to use indoors. Outdoors it gets sketchy so I'd use a wireless trigger for that.