Here's my sweetie on the phone. This was taken with the flash on-camera, but bounced off the ceiling. The flash was in full auto everything mode ("yellow" on the zone dial which I don't fully get yet), so this is what the flash and camera do without me really being involved very much. I added a touch of edge sharpening in post, but otherwise this is what comes out of the box.
Here's Kyra being completely nuked by the flash in manual mode firing into a silver 43" umbrella from about 6' away. Clearly I have lots to learn.
And McKenna, not so completely nuked by the flash firing at half power into the umbrella. A little closer, but I'm going to have to spend some time working through the exercises on Strobist.