She said it's not so much the difference in our cameras, but the fact she has a separate flash, that she bounces off walls and ceilings to get more light on the subject, but not directly in their fasces. She kindly loaned me her flash so i could play around with it. It's a big, heavy unit.
Here, hand held at 800 ISO with flash bouncing off the wall behind me....
I haven't tried the flash with a tripod, since that defeats the whole purpose - which is to get sharp photos inside the house, of hyped up kids and babies high on sugar. With a a tripod, and using the self-timer, the kids would have bounced out of frame by the time the camera takes the picture.
The one situation where the flash did help was when my doll was in front of the window.
Here's my Asa, taken at 800 ISO without any flash....
Looks like I need to practice some more, but with my flighty, overwhelmed brain, I can't focus on absorbing anything in the Instruction Manual right now. Not that I can understand those things even with a clear head.