Using flash in live view

Well Lubbyman I think you have cracked it. I took a quick shot this morning with on camera flash so not off camera with a diffuser as I normally do, but enough to test your method, and it worked! I set the ISO to minimum range 100-200 and in TAV used the green button to get initial settings then reduced the speed to 1/200 and reduced aperture to f22, and the screen was still bright and clear! I could manually focus handheld and the result is below. Interestingly because the flash is set to P-TTL the green button adjusts the exposure setting to suit so I took three more, first using in-camera settings with the flash switched on, then just changing the settings as before, and finally getting the exposure before switching on the flash. The results all looked the same but that of course is the P-TTL doing its job. Anyhow here is the result as a JPEG straight out of the camera which as you can see needs a bit more light but that's probably because I was close up so mostly outside the flash field; but the important thing is I could use live view on the tilting screen and see to focus.

I used the ring flash recently to lighten shadows in daylight as it is relatively weak and diffuse but as you suggest it does get left in the cupboard a lot which is a shame.

Vibrating pipes - pipe clips loose? Change in water pressure?

Pleased to have been able to help. But to be fair, it was other people who had worked out how to do it, all I did was to find it.

I sometimes use the ring flash for bees and similar to give a highlighted insect against a dark background. Never thought of using it for flowers. Something to do when the weather is a bit better. I've never used the green button before, either. Something else to investigate.

Change in water pressure - nothing obvious, hope it isn't because there's not much I can do about it.
Loose pipe clips - now that's a good suggestion, all the plumbing was replaced about 3 years ago so it's about the time when things work loose. But most of it is between ceilings and floors ... There is a long, unsupported run behind a panel that's not caused any problems before, but perhaps it needs looking at.

Steve

Lubbyman, the green button is magic for manual especially and also for TAV, it temporarily applies auto mode to get an accurate exposure and when you change settings the exposure bar on the screen tells you if you are over- or underexposed.

The two flowering cherry tree shots at the start of this topic were taken with ring flash, and I have seen examples where it was used for portraits together with other dominant light sources. The only problem I find with insects is if they are shiny like a beetle you get bright highlights which are almost impossible to remove afterwards.