Flash gun or some other light source?

Question

I'm looking for some piece of advice from more advanced fellow photographers with regards to the artificial 'daylight' sources.

I'd like to be able to some pictures of kids at home. Unfortunately the windows of my living room are to the North and West so there is no too much nice daylight to do sharp crisp images especially in winter when days are darker and evenings are shorter.

I was wondering about buying some external flash lamp for my DSLR. Can you tell if you think there are any other alternatives? Maybe I could by some other lamp that I could stick to the furniture or to some stand to get the good 'daylight'-like light source.

Answer 1

You want to use a hotshoe flash, a continuous lightsource would not be bright enough (unless you borrow some lights from a movie set) to give you a fast shutter speed / small aperture required for sharp photos of moving subjects.

Also, flashguns are usually colour balanced for daylight. Angling the flash upwards to bounce off a white ceiling will give a very nice quality of light and get you as close as possible to natural window light.

Answer 2

You also want to read the Lighting 101 on strobist.com about what all you can do with flashes. Soft/hard light, gelling for coloured light, whatever you want to know, it is on this page ;)