Hello,
It can be a challenge to get great photos in the evening, after sundown, and especially in the dark! So much depends on so much: background light sources (such as the sky), your film speed, and the power of your flash systems, for example.
I try to avoid taking pictures in the dark when I don't have to. I'll take my deer home, ice down the chest cavity and come back right after sunup to get my photos. I'll still use a flash during the daytime (almost all the time for these types of shots) to fill shadows, just as Pupster talked about.
The best flash pictures melt available light with light from the flash to the point where detecting that a flash was used is difficult. In extremely dark situations, with little available light, subjects can easily appear "washed out" , flat, and backgrounds tend to go dark, even with today's most sophisticated systems -- making it a dead give away that it is a flash shot. Most offten the result is a rather blah photo (of which, I've taken several!)
Many photographers use 100 speed film for sharp photos. If you are using this ASA, for example, though, you will have to be much closer to your subject with your flash than you would with say 400 speed film, which is 4 times more light sensitive. Thus, film speed dictates appropriate shot distance when using flash. Something to keep in mind.
You can learn much about exposures and resulting photos by practicing on something like a brown teddy bear in your backyard under various light conditions. You have an off camera flash as well as an on camera flash (I believe the N50 has a flash?) which is the way to go to keep that 3D appearence of the photo and to make the photo "pop". Hold the flash off to the side and slightly above your subject to experiment with sidelighting, your on camera flash will give you frontlighting.
The Nikon exposure system is pretty "smart"; I'd set your N50 on matrix metering and let it's TTL system figure out the exposures to start. Record the exposure that you use when practicing for each shot. When you get your pictures back you will know just how "smart" your camera is! And, you will find that you will, in some situatins, have to override your camera's exposure selection. It takes lots of practice, in lots of situations, to realize just how your camera "thinks". And just how you need to go about changing it's thinking!
Other things to keep in mind with any photography is to use a solid tripod when possible. A tripod is a must for flash photography.
Use 100 speed or slower film for ultra sharp photos.
Have film processed by a professional lab instead of the local $ discount, if you really want top-notch results.
When photographing a hunter and deer I've found it best to be on the same level or below that of the focus point (the deer's eyes). It just makes the shot more interesting to me.
Use a wide angle lens and get close.
Have the hunter hold the head up while he angles back and down in the photo to make the antlers appear as big as possible. Of course, clean off all blood on the deer and wet the deer's nose and eyes to make the deer look almost alive (you might try a set of taxidermy glass eyes in the deer if it has been sitting overnight as well).
Be aware of background light sources that will trick your camera's metering, the sky, snow, water, etc.! Try to keep them out of most of the photo OR out of the exposure making process. These background light sources mess up a lot of folks' photos and have messed up a lot of mine! What I like to do is to point your camera on something of mid-tone color such as the side of a deer or the grass, hold exposure lock, and then recompose and shoot. This will eliminate the catastrophic effects of background light sources.
When shooting daylight photos, set your camera to aperature priority mode and let the camera do the work. Use a tripod. And use an f stop of 8 or higher if you want sharp corner to corner shots of a hunter and deer, for instance. Larger aperature settings keep the subject sharp but tend to isolate the subject from the background more, which is great for many wildlife shots but is often not what you might want for a hunter/deer type portrait (deer would be in focus, part of hunter would be blurred).
Hey my fingers are falling off here. Good luck and have fun!
Raven