In the past 3 or so years I have never used a flash in my photography with pretty good results. I think I'm ready to go to the next stage, so I wanted to learn a bit about what I should be doing in terms of flash and what benefits I would see.

With the combination of fast lenses and good quality high ISO, i never thought I needed flash - but do think it may improve my photography if I learn about lighting.

As a non-professional what kind of equipment would I want to use (mainly for home use)? I think my D700 has remote triggering capability so I guess that may come in handy. Next question, do I really need flash?

Thanks in advance and sorry in advance for the dumb questions.

These resources will help:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

http://www.dg28.com/technique/index.htm

Thanks Tom! I will go through those links

Here is another link with good info: http://www.sublime-light.com/index.php/2007/06/22/portrait-lighting-for-beginners-introduction/#contents

Do you really need flash? Well, it depends. Is every picture you take well balanced (good contrast ratio) indoors and out? Are you always shooting at high ISO's to keep the shutter speed up? If you are shooting at high ISO's can you print enlargements or look at images without excessive noise?/ If you can answer yes to all of these you probably don't need flash. But if you do, get and SB-900, it's wonderful.

Gregg Heckler wrote:
Do you really need flash? Well, it depends. Is every picture you take well balanced (good contrast ratio) indoors and out? Are you always shooting at high ISO's to keep the shutter speed up? If you are shooting at high ISO's can you print enlargements or look at images without excessive noise?/ If you can answer yes to all of these you probably don't need flash. But if you do, get and SB-900, it's wonderful.

Thanks Gregg - I hear a lot of problems with SB900 overheating, is that true?

One more link: http://planetneil.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/

I haven't had any over heating issues but I did do the firmware update so that may have taken care of any problem there may been. However, when you say a lot of problems I think it is limited to a few people here and on Nikonians. I have poped a couple of SB-800 tubes in the past but no issues with the 900. It's a first class tool.