Canon 60D flash?

I was taking some test shots of a pile of books on a table indoors at night in a room lit by 2 lamps, with Aperture mode and set to f5. Without a flash the camera set the shutter speed to 1 second, and with flash to 1/2 second. I then switched to manual and set f5 with flash and this time set the shutter to 1/250, which was the max it would go. The picture came out just as exposed as the 1/2 second w/flash picture.

Why would the camera not select a much faster shutter speed when using the flash in aperture mode? When the results of the manual test show that it clearly could?

In Av mode the camera assumes that you wish to use the flash for fill-in only and therefore tries to properly expose the background using ambient illumination...This requires the longer shutter speed.

In manual mode the camera "knows" that there will be underexposure with the fast shutter speed, so therefore tries to expose the best that it can using flash illumination alone.

Check out on your menu for C.FN I Flash Sync. in Av there you will have 3 options 1) for Auto It will behave exactly as you describe, 2) 1/250-1/60 the lowest shutter it will go is 1/60 and 3) 1/250 this will be always the shutter speed if you are using flash.