Yes the reason I need depth of field and need to shoot with great lights is... in depth of field tone map will do noting but add a tone of noise in blured areas.. and also shooting stuff with tons of black in it turns into tons of noise as well...'

so the light and depth of field really needs to be perfect to get a good strong image out of it.
trust me I have spent hours trying all kind of images and writing down the problem areas in a photo.. and they all boil down to depth of field and bad lighting...

im almost at the point i dont even have to mess with photo shop much at all if the tone mapping comes out right...

I can show some examples of what i mean if you like :)

I have another question I have to do a shoot in a salon this week and there is zero room to bring strobe lights and all... is there a way to use my speedlight. without it acting like an on board flash..
i dont want to fire direct on the people with a flash right at them . I only want to use it to where it gives enough light in a room to get the shots :-)