I hope I am posting this in the right place. I just thought this info might help other people who are afraid of using their flash because of harsh results.

Now I, and everyone else here, knows how much I love window light portraits. But I think there are times when flash is needed and I don't want to be afraid of it anymore.

So I had a practise with fill flash, both indoors and outdoors, using my pop up flash not my speedlite.
I couldn't believe the results. :thumbsup:

I still got flash shadows when my subjects were too close to the bg but not half as bad as in the past. I really enjoyed playing yesterday. Getting that "eureka moment" when I finally knew how to predict what my flash was going to do.

Here's what worked for me...
I turned my flash exposure compensation down to -2.
Metered my light as I normally would, in camera, getting the correct exposure for no flash. Then I underexposed to the 1 to 1.5 mark.
Popped my flash up and these were the results.

All I can say is "wow"! I am incredibly happy!

Both indoor photographs are Manual mode, ISO 400, f/4.0, SS 1/60
Outdoor shot was Manual mode, ISO 100, f/8.0, SS 1/200. (This was a little over-exposed but I corrected that in photoshop. Still pretty happy with the result though).

Feel free to post your own flash practises here. But please tell us what you did to get your results.