Benefits of an external flash over internal

[wideangle]

Am really considering getting an external flash unit for my Canon setup (580EXM2) and am quite new to the whole area of flash photography. I have gotten away with using the pop-up flash on my camera when doing portrait shots, I underexpose the flash by -1 in order to not get that "in your face" flash kind of look. I've attained some good results but probably no where near as good as using a dedicated flash unit. So to all those experienced external flash users out there, can you dot point some of the key benifits of using an external flash over an inbuult one when being used for portraits, and/or creative uses.

Cheers
benefits

[clcollins]

One of the best features bounce it off surfaces so light comes from a different angle (ie comes in from the side) and also being able to take it off the camera and have the flash firing from somewhere totally different to your standard light source, can give some majorly different light effects. Another bonus is stronger light, better quality, further reach etc.

[Jimbo]

What Cath said.

Onboard flash, even if dialled down, is still straight down the barrel of the gun, a very boring look that can't be varied.

External flash can be made to look like natural ambient lighting. There are heaps of other things you can do with it too.

Read this: Strobist 101

More from David Hobby's website: Strobist.com

Relevant Flickr groups: Strobist and Flash Flavor.

Check out Dustin Diaz's photostream: here

What you can do is really only limited by your imagination.

[IanB]

Apart from more power; it's more controllable>>I quiet like the small built in flash units for very mild fill light on some portraits/photos and I do miss it now I use 5D2

[wideangle]

Thanks so much everyone for the input, and thanks for the links Jimbo. I agree with you Ian that the built in flash units are quite useful for mild fill in light.