[Mike_e]

Hi, me barging in again. If you can't noticeably effect the background and you don't want it to look like daylight then you have to meter and adjust for it in addition to the main subject, right? To get the background to look the way it ought then you have to change the exposure with shutter speed because the flash has the aperture reserved because the flash gun speed is for the most part set at ~1/8000 sec and the shutter speed will have no effect.

Since the main subject determines the aperture for DoF issues the flash is set to accommodate this and thus the aperture and flash are set. That leaves the problem of the background looking like a bad low key shot.

So to bring up the background you use the aperture setting and find out what the s/speed would have to be to bring the exposure up to mimic daylight.

Once this speed is determined you then under expose to darken the background and show the mood of the scene. Once you have the background exposed and compensated and the flash is ready to go for correct exposure on the subject, you are ready to shoot.

I hope I didn't ramble too much but this works for me.

mike