The sky was very,very ugly today. A very pale,smoggy,washed-out blue color,with frequent patches of ugly whitish-grayish clouds,like that seen here over most of the right hand background side.Ugly,ugly sky colorexisted when I was shooting these tests. I realized that the "natural" representation of the sky looked ugly,so I decided I needed to go for a darker sky, a more twilight+flash type of feeling....a shot where I could illuminate the foreground with flash,but get just the right amount of light fall-off to make the background appear darker, deeper blue. That would hide the ugly whiteness of the sky behind this spot on the butterfly bush. I enacted this plan immediately,and the result can be seen at http://www.pbase.com/image/30895109. Note the frame count--I went from this ugly,natural-looking sky renditiuon to a deeper,darker,more-satisfying,BETTER image with the D70 at 1/500 at f/18. In just a half-second or so,I had made the changes on the camera. No need to reach for neutral density to make my background darker. Just easy fill-flash control.