Hi Rowena,

This is a great opportunity to practice without the burden of delivering "primary" shots. Don't worry about using a diffuser right now....just start getting comfortable with using your flash.

Few things:
1. If you have low ceilings, point your flash straight up.
2. Find an off-camera cord and hold your flash in your left hand while you shoot with your right.
3. Point your flash straight on, but meter for the ambient light. Use second curtain sync.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips Floyd! Sorry for the ding question but what is a 2nd curtain sync?

Second curtain sync.

Timing of the firing of an electronic flash unit, such that it fires shortly before the second curtain of a focal plane shutter closes. (with first curtain sync the flash fires immediately upon the first curtain opening) The result of the second-curtain firing is a more natural light trail when used with slow-shutter sync.

Enabling second curtain sync.

This depends very much on the camera and flash unit that you’re using. Early on, Canon put control for this feature on the flash unit. Later they switched to putting control for this feature on the camera body. So whether you have second-curtain sync available to you depends on a complicated set of permutations.

Many mid to high end Canon flash units, listed below, have a button or switch which lets you enable second curtain sync. It’s usually marked with a triple triangle ( >>> ) symbol or the word SYNC. For instance, on the 430EZ and 540EZ you press the + and - buttons together simultaneously to turn on second-curtain sync. When you do so a triple triangle symbol appears in the LCD. On the 300EZ and 300TL there’s a small slide switch - left is first-curtain sync and right is second-curtain.

Most midrange and professional EOS bodies from the A2(E)/5 onwards have a custom function that lets you specify whether you want first or second curtain flash. The exception is the original Elan/100, which had a custom function that can only control the internal flash and not external flash units. In the case of a camera with a custom function and an external flash unit which has a second curtain switch then you use the physical switch on the flash to control the function.

Low-end EOS cameras, such as the 1000 series or Rebel series, do not have any custom functions and so cannot control second curtain sync options directly. So to take advantage of second curtain sync on such cameras you must have an external flash which has externally-available controls to operate it.

Second-curtain sync cannot be used with any EOS camera in a PIC (icon) mode - you have to be set in P, Av, Tv or M modes. And you can’t set second-curtain sync in stroboscopic mode or FP mode, since that wouldn’t make any sense. Finally, second-curtain sync requires a dedicated Speedlite flash unit - it isn’t supported on flash units connected via a PC socket.

From Photonotes.org (a great informational website)...

Few things:
1. If you have low ceilings, point your flash straight up.