Using On-Camera Flash When There is Not a Lot of Light Available

I usually never use on-camera flash. It is too harsh for most subjects. I did some experimenting with it yesterday when there wasn't a lot of light available coming from the sun.

I set my camera to manual using a fast shutter speed (around 160th of a second ), set my aperture to around F11 to get more depth of field and set my on-camera flash to + 3 exposure. I was hoping the flash was powerful enough to reach the leaves up in the tree and the fast shutter speed would make the background darker so the leaves would stand out more. It worked. The sky was actually brighter than this but the faster shutter speed made it a beautiful dark blue. I will be using the on-camera flash more at night. It can get some interesting results.