In article <4tlgeh$l4@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, barryp13@aol.com says...

>I was taught that flash has a distance beyond which it is useless. Was I
>taught wrong??? Watching the Olympic Gymnastics Competition, when they
>showed a Slow Motion of the American Gymnast's routines, it looked like
>there were thousands of camera flashes going off from the seats, which are
>quite far away from the person theyt were photographing. It would seem
>that the bright lighting in the auditorium would be more than adequate for
>taking pictures. Also, the press photographers were not using flash. So,
>were all these thousands of people just wasting their batteries or have
>flash units improved that much that they are useful from a long
>distance???

;-), ;-), ;-)..........
It is amazing, isn't it, how very MANY folks don't know the limitations of
their equipment.... Though, I suppose, most of those flashes are emitted by
P & S cameras, the owners of which do not care to know the particulars of
the process by which they obtain pictures. But, then, you see pros outdoors
with little reflector cards and Omni-Bounces on their upturned flashes, also
wasting perfectly good battery power for little or no gain.....
Hope This Helps