Thanks again Mr Ed. I've got a Canon 350D and a 430EX speedlite. When mounted, is the flash far enough away from the lens? If not, how can I get the flashgun to fire remotely without spending vast amounts of money. BTW I have the stofen omnibounce already so that should help.
Thanks mate.
the aim is to get the flash as close as possible to the subject so that you dont have to use lots of light power, and therefore get more pleasing illumination
if your camera supports wireless flash triggering then fine use that if it doens then get an 'off camera flash cord' as you own a canon you can get generic ones or canon own brand which are better and nicer built ( i used to have one)
that way you can use the camera and flash with all features anything upto about 3 ft away, its quite useful for creative lighting anyway.
before you spend out though what lens are you using? i got quite good results using the flash on the hotshoe and the milk bottle diffuser with a 100mm lens and a 150mm lens and got good results. its all about experimentation.
another good diffuser material is the corrugated opaque plastic modelling board you can get at hobby craft etc.
i reckon though for around 25 quid you could get an off camera flash cord and some kind of flash bracket. the cord will have a tripod socket on the bottom of the flash end which makes for easy mounting. for the flash bracket either go to a 'proper' camera shop and see if they have 2nd hand bits for sale and look for a flash bracket like this
http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/9097/show.html
(thats over priced IMO and they can be got cheaper)
then you can attach it to the bottom of your camera and the flash on the other end, i used 2 that i joined together to give me a pivot origianlly but it was a bit unbalanced. i then just used to one and was able to position the flash next to the lens but pointing in.
i will have a look around see if i have a spare bracket you can have, or any other bits from when i was experimenting, i may have binned it all though so cant promise.
PM me if you want to know more