How can I get faster shutter speeds with flash?

I'm a newbie and want to get faster shutter speeds when using my 430 ex speedlite on my canon rebel XT. So far "P" is the only one that seems to not take into account ambient light, and has a constant shutter of 60. (Of course the background is dark and the pics look washed out). As I understand "Av" "Tv" and "M" all take into account ambient light, which makes the picture look good, but slows the shutter WAY down. The other things I've tried are: 1) adjusting ISO WAY up which makes more noise and, 2) adjusting the custom function #3 which forces "Av" to have a shutter speed at 200. But this doesn't seem to yield very good results - colors look washed out again like in P.

Is there a way to get a 125 shutter speed without taking into account ambient lighting or do I have to live with slow shutter speeds?

Shoot in M and take control of your aperture and shutter speeds.

cdi-ink.com wrote in post #2021373
Shoot in M and take control of your aperture and shutter speeds.

What cdi-ink.com said and Welcome to POTN.

Thanks for the advice!

I'm a little shy about using M right now, especially when I have to take a picture in less that 2 or three seconds for someone's pose - it takes me a minute to set up and it's very tempting to just put the darn thing on P.

Does M take into account ambient lighting when using a flash? I've read many threads already about flash photography and am still trying to figure this all out - kind of complicated.

johnelser wrote in post #2021460
Does M take into account ambient lighting when using a flash? I've read many threads already about flash photography and am still trying to figure this all out - kind of complicated.

The beauty of M is it takes into account whatever you want it to take into account. Play around with it and you'll see.

M doesn't take into account anything. M is manual. However, the light meter that advises you in M does take into account ambient light, and ignores the flash.

Set the aperture around f/8, set the shutter speed somewhere below 1/200 (1/30 and above should be good), and if your indoors, point the flash up to bounce it, or get a flash diffuser.

Johnelser,

Welcome to POTN!

M is the way to go with flash if you're not concerned about the ambient light. Ignore the meter in the viewfinder.

Flash photography 101 (link in my signature) might help you with some concepts important to flash. Take a look, keep experimenting, and feel free to ask when other questions pop up.

I think you are the first one to get through my thick head.

I thought that when I used "M" I would have need to adjust the aperture and shutter speed in the viewfinder to make proper exposure.

But you are saying that I can ignore all that (with flash), and say, set my shutter to 125 and my aperture to 8 and my picture will come out (at least the subject, not the ambient light). I think I'm beginning to understand

johnelser wrote in post #2021938
I think you are the first one to get through my thick head.

I thought that when I used "M" I would have need to adjust the aperture and shutter speed in the viewfinder to make proper exposure.

But you are saying that I can ignore all that (with flash), and say, set my shutter to 125 and my aperture to 8 and my picture will come out (at least the subject, not the ambient light). I think I'm beginning to understand

Correct. M is just easier (in my opinion) because you can make your own decisions. The only time it wouldn't yield a proper subject exposure would be if you metered for the scene (background) to overexpose anyway. Adding flash to the mix would overexpose even more. Make sense?

johnelser wrote in post #2021938
I can ignore all that (with flash), and say, set my shutter to 125 and my aperture to 8 and my picture will come out (at least the subject, not the ambient light).

Yes, that's right, if the flash is in E-TTL mode, and as long as the flash has enough power to get the job done, given the distance, aperture and ISO setting.

The distance scale on the back of the flash unit will help, as well as the flash confirmation light which illuminates after the shot, if all is well.

Edit: Oops, forgot the 430EX doesn't have a distance scale.

Once you have the aha moment realizing that the camera light meter is for the ambient exposure and ETTL-II takes care of the subject exposure, flash photography suddenly becomes much easier.

Also, keep in mind that if the room is dimly lit shutterspeed won't matter since most of the illumination is from flash which is an extremely quick burst of light ... so the flash will freeze the subject. If the room has a lot of ambient light you'll need a bit higher shutterspeed to avoid getting a ghosting effect if your subject moves or from camera shake.

The great thing about digital is you can do a ton of practice shots and get instant feedback to see what works. You'll get there faster though if you read the link that Curtis pointed you to

Edit: I also only use flash with the camera in Manual.

Besides Curtis's great section on Flash, I learned alot on using M and indoor flash, check out this thread:

https://photography-on-the.net …150816&highligh​t=rabidcow

If you like to read about Canon's OES flash try this link. Pretty detailed.

http://photonotes.org/​articles/eos-flash/

yep M is what you need give it a try, you'll see how easy it is. start with a shutter speed that wont give you camera shake, so if you're using a 50mm lens try 1/60 or so, then pick an aperture that gives you the required depth of field, ie not f2.8 if you're shooting groups! then pick an iso. 400 is probably a good starting point - go up if you want more ambient, down if you want less (and less noise. obviously this all depends on the conditions - this is for night time/indoors shooting, and as long as you dont over expose (check the meter) it will be fine. Take a shot and canons ettl sorts out the rest for you. dial in some flash exposure compensation if you feel the flash was too harsh or not enough (check your histogram to see any blinking highlights). if you're indoors bouncings a good idea, and as others have said read curtis' excellent guides. once you've got all this sussed you can think about light modifiers to play around with, such as a simple index card attached to your flash to act as a fill when bouncing, or coloured gels so the flash matches the temperature of the surrounding ambient light or even making things like mini softboxes... which i think are a bit ott..... just have fun

Thanks for everyone's help! What a tremendous help this forum is! Better than buying 10 books, plus a person can get instant answers to their questions.

I don't have any camera savvy friends, so I don't have anyone to call up for advice. It's amazing that in the period of a couple of hours, people from all over the world can chime in on a question and give excellent advice.

I'm reading all I can about flash (and the articles you referred me to are so great I have to read them over and over) but it takes a while for it all to sink in.

I guess it's "M" from here on out. Good bye "P" forever!