sports and lighting question

Im wanting to get into bmx photography. I have a t2i with a sigma 10mm fisheye and nothing more. I was trying to shot mid day today with the flash up to get fill light because the sun light was blacking out the riders face and some other details and because i had the flash open the max shutter speed i can hav was 200 and that wasnt fast enough the rider would have a little bit of moton blur to him still. Any tips or ideas on how to use the flash i have or a cheap way i can get lighting but have a higher shutter speed than 200?

You'll need an external flash with high speed sync (HSS) to go above 200. I have no idea how it would work for you since I don't shoot that, but that gets you a faster ss with flash. Do the riders not mind being flashed? The cheapest (free) solution might be to simply move to a track position where they are lit better, if possible (midday would be tough either way).

no they dont mind being flashed i was thinking of buying a 580ex ii or 430 ex ii but would that allow me to use a faster shutter? or would it still limit me to 200 and yea the problem is that its kinda like street bmx that we ride so we cant really move the rails and steps around that we find but i tried moving different angles its just kind of hard when the sun was right above us

The problem is that in action sports photography, you want to use either ambient light or the flashed light and not mix the two with a 'fill' flash. The reason is the one you alluded to, the max sync of the camera is typically 1/200 to 1/300 seconds. That's OK if the flash is 3 stops stronger than the ambient because the flash overpowers and stops the action. If not, then the ambient light still exposes the image and at 1/200 seconds, that means blurred action images.

It's really tough to overpower the ambient light at midday.

Alternative ideas? Consider shooting those images back lit with a +1.0 (give or take) exposure compensation (or find the appropriate Manual setting). Adjust to properly expose the face. That may 'burn out' the shoulders and give the impression of a 'hair light' but the face will be great and the subject won't be squinting. Try it. On days with harsh shadows it can give you a superior image--especially if the subject is wearing a hat or visor.

Examples:

TipsyFlipped wrote in post #12241238
no they dont mind being flashed i was thinking of buying a 580ex ii or 430 ex ii but would that allow me to use a faster shutter? or would it still limit me to 200 and yea the problem is that its kinda like street bmx that we ride so we cant really move the rails and steps around that we find but i tried moving different angles its just kind of hard when the sun was right above us

Yes. Like stated above, put the flash in high sync flash mode and you'll get the shutter speeds you require.

For example with this picture without flash his face was really dark and i could only get it to show detail with flash but since it wasnt letting me go over 1/200, you can see hes a bit blurred out

How fast are they moving? Tracking may help some, you could try some home depot lights for around $30-$40?

My quick solution would be to ditch the flash, shoot in M and expose 1/3-2/3 over and bring it back down in post, evening out the face or shadows. if you do this it's a good idea to shoot in raw(assuming you have the ability to process RAW files)... (or just have him ride up the ramp into the sun .

BTW: Mixing home depot lights with sunlight will give you weird orange colors. Flash works cause its the same temp, 5600k.

Good Luck!