Don,

The limit on shutter speed using flash indoors or at night is dictated by the high limit at which the flash will sync with the shutter. If the shutter speed were set higher it would no provide a time/space adequate to record the flash exposure.

Don,

With electronic flash, the effective exposure time is determined by the flash duration, which, depending on the situation, can be significantly shorter than time the lens is actually open, which apparently for your camera is 1/200 second minimum. Much will depend on the output power of the flash, the distance to the subject and the sensitivity of your camera. It may be that the output power of your flash just isn't enough.

Frans Waterlander
pixographer

David and Frans, thank you for the information, but that lends itself to another question. Does that mean that the flash that I am using is not designed for the speed of the shutter that I want? If that is the case, how do I go about getting the right one? Where to look and what to look for. As a newbie I appreciate your help in this matter.

While I have you here, is there anything else in my set up which may be causing me a problem ie not getting the crisp photo's that I want.

Thanks,
Don

Don,

What we are talking about here is maximum flash synch shutter speed, which with your camera apparently is 1/200th second. The maximum synch shutter speed is usually the highest speed the shutter is fully open to permit the flash to expose the entire frame opening. SLR cameras use focal plane shutters which travel up/down the focal plane, or across, depending on camera design. Faster speeds never fully open exposing the entire frame to exposure all at one time, just opening a slit that travels across the focal plane. If the flash went off at any of these higher speeds only part of the sensor frame would be exposed by the flash.

David, thanks again, but bear with me. So this camera is not capable of taking the pictures that I want. I was shooting next to a guy who was using a 20D and he was shooting at a shutter speed of 250, so that means the camera is more capable of opening up to use the flash at higher speeds. Is there any other way to achieve quality pictures indoors without investing in a new camera body? If I was to upgrade is this information something that can be attained in write up about the cameras or is this something that can only be known by using the camera.

Thanks for taking your time to help.

Don

Don,

You said you were taking pictures of sports indoors and are using an on-camera battery powered flash. So, I would assume the ambient available light level is not nearly as bright as the flash is illuminating your subjects. In that case the flash's short duration, which is in the thousandth of a second, will freeze any action. You could very well be using a slow 1/60th or even 1/30th of a second shutter speed and subject image quality would not be affected, although the background would not expose as dark. In fact it was not too many years ago that the fastest shutter speed an electronic flash would synch at was 1/60th second with a focal-plane 35mm SLR camera, and photographer obtained fine quality indoor sports photos then.

In other words in the kind of situation you are photographing in, shutter speed is largely irrelevant and does not affect image quality at all.

The only real need for a high shutter synch speed is when you are using flash as a fill light for shadows outdoors in daylight.