Attended MFF this past weekend. I took some pics at the dance competition. I did discover how much better my photos could be when I have a bitchin powerful external flash unit.

This is  Rei_Meerkat, aka  step. This suit is totally crazy XD Dunno what to make of it, lol. Easy to photograph though! A note to dancing suiters, photos come out best when you do BIG and EXPRESSIVE movements instead of technical movements close to the body. More will be forthcoming as I edit them.

I used my YN560 flash to bounce off of the ~30 foot ceiling to illuminate the subjects from above (took me a few dancers to realize I needed to use the bounce technique and had enough power to do it at those distances). A good high flash power (max not needed though) with a high shutter speed and smallish aperture let me darken the background while giving the subject good illumination so that they POP out (things I figured out a few dancers later, so not on this image). Was using my 80-200mm lens on this, so you can imagine my surprise that the flash had enough power to bounce those kind of distances and achieve this much illumination in this horribly illuminated room XD