Once you get a flash, speedlight or speedlite unit the first thing you are told is to get it off your camera. Sometimes a situation just doesn’t accommodate this – like shooting an event light a trade show, wedding or social event where it’s more important to catch the shot then get perfect lighting.
So when you can’t get your flash unit off your camera you have to do the next best thing: bounce. If you’re lucky the ceilings are low enough to accommodate bouncing, I find 8 – 12′ ceilings are best for this. Now that you know you are going to bounce your light off the ceiling do you know at what angle? The flash I demoed, the Nikon SB600, there’s 5 settings: 0° (straight at the subject, ie. not bounce), 45°, 60°, 70° and 90° (straight up). I grabbed my mannequin head (we’ll call her Sharla for obvious reasons) and did some test shots.