SO I'm shooting skateboarders indoors at a local park with flourescent lights. I'm going to use my 550ex with a stofen and hand hold the flash by using a sync cord back to my Elan7e.

First question: My ETTL will still work as long as I'm on a sync cord right?

Second question : My 550 will tell me what F-stop to use depending on how far away my subject is, what do you guys recomend for a shutter speed if I'm hand holding. My camera's flash sync is 1/125 but I used that once and all of my pics came out near black. I don't mind a fuzzy background (but not tooo fuzzy) as long as my subject is sharp.

Third question: I tried using my 15mm last week at an in park shoot hand holding my camera with the flash on the camera. Is a 15mm not a good idea (indoors) unless I'm on a tripod because the (flash) light fall-off is greater because of the super wide angle?

Thanks for your help! -Justin