Flash 101 tutorial

I've been a very enthousiastic more-than-amateur self-thaught photographer for over 10 years, using pro equipment and after thousands of great keepers, quite frankly, I find myself having some talent. However, I have only shot in plain light, never using flash. So it's time to fill that gap, as I found it could come in handy sometimes.

Here is a dumb question:

I remember on my old Elan 7E, when in darkness it showed for instance, 0"5' 2.8, as I popped up the built-in flash, it immediately switched to a reasonnable figure which reads for instance: 1/60, 2.8, indicating me that I could go on and shoot.

Now on a 1D Mark II with the EX 430 turned on and set for the focal lenght required, I expected the same effect but there is no difference... the 1D Mark II body shows the same (unworkable) values when the shutter is half-pressed as it would with no flash on.

Is there anywhere on the web a flash 101 tutorial?
Does anyone have a link for the manual (.pdf or scanned) of the Canon 430EX flash?

How about the Flash Photography 101 tutorials in the Stickys:

Flash Photography 101

yeah, I should've done my homework
many thanks!

No prob. You're welcome.

Rodinal wrote in post #5954267
I've been a very enthousiastic more-than-amateur self-thaught photographer for over 10 years, using pro equipment and after thousands of great keepers, quite frankly, I find myself having some talent. However, I have only shot in plain light, never using flash. So it's time to fill that gap, as I found it could come in handy sometimes.

Here is a dumb question:

I remember on my old Elan 7E, when in darkness it showed for instance, 0"5' 2.8, as I popped up the built-in flash, it immediately switched to a reasonnable figure which reads for instance: 1/60, 2.8, indicating me that I could go on and shoot.

Now on a 1D Mark II with the EX 430 turned on and set for the focal lenght required, I expected the same effect but there is no difference... the 1D Mark II body shows the same (unworkable) values when the shutter is half-pressed as it would with no flash on.

Is there anywhere on the web a flash 101 tutorial?
Does anyone have a link for the manual (.pdf or scanned) of the Canon 430EX flash?

I bet you worked your old Elan 7E in Auto or P mode. To get the same behavior with the 1D2, you'll need to set it to P mode, too.