Yesterday I was testing some lighting setups with two reflective umbrellas on light stands, each with a Canon 580EX flash firing into it, triggering the flashes with a Canon ST-E2 wireless flash transmitter mounted on the camera's hotshoe. I wasn't concerned about ambient light, so I was shooting with the camera in manual mode, way under-exposed for the ambient light inside, and relying on the flashes in ETTL mode to provide enough lighting. The background is a plain wall in the living room.

I managed to talk my wife into being the first test subject, and with some minor tweaking of the umbrella positions, I got the shot shown below.

Ruth

Seville Grove, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @70mm, 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO200

I was pretty happy with the result, particularly given the very quick setup time of the light stands and umbrellas. Using ETTL mode for the flashes in a situation like this means there's virtually zero setup time of the flashes themselves, other than potentially dialling in some flash exposure compensation to achieve the desired lighting.

I also talked my oldest daughter into posing for a few shots too, with one of the shots shown below.

Michelle

Seville Grove, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 100mm f/2.8 macro @100mm, 1/80 sec, f/5, ISO200

In hindsight, another flash to the rear would have provided some highlights and rim lighting on the hair, but that's an exercise for another day.