420Ex in Av?

Hello and Merry Christmas to all,
I bought myself a 420EX flash for my G2 and have been experimenting with it. I haven't been able to play with it outside in the daylight, but have been playing with it a LOT in the house at night after work.

First, let me say if you don't have this flash... Get it! Shots inside the house bouncing the flash off the ceiling are the most realistic shots I have seen where a flash was used.

Okay, on to my question. Correct me if I am wrong, but when in Auto and (P)rogram, the flash fires as the main source of illumination and thus you end up with more of that nasty white flash colored light (unless you are bouncing). In Av and Tv the flash is supposed to fire in "fill flash mode."

What I am noticing is inside the house, P shots with the flash turned off expose at 1/10sec F2.0. Now if I take an Av shot dialed in at F2 with the flash on, I get 1/60sec at F2. That shot looks identical to a P shot with the flash on which exposes at 1/60sec at F2.

I can't tell a difference between what I would consider main illuminination and fill flash.

Just as an experiment, I placed the camera in Tv with 1/10sec (it picked f2.0). That shot I could tell was in fill flash mode. Of course anything moving blurred, but that is to be expected at 1/10sec.

Now with all my babble out of the way, anyone know why I cannot tell a difference between the Av and P with the flash? The only thing I can assume is the slowest sync speed of the camera (I think) is 1/60sec so in Av it is picked 1/60 with the f2.0 and thus the flash thinks it needs more power to "properly" expose the film.

Does this sound like what is happening? I am right about the Tv and Av fireing in fill flash mode, right?

Thanks all,
Michael

Answered my own question

Go figure. I pulled out the manual and looked up Av mode and it says right there that using flash in Av mode limits your to shutter to no slower than 1/60sec.

Don't get me wrong, I love my G2 (However, I would trade it for a D60), but I am disappointed in the Av mode. Now it has two strikes against it.

The first strike is the 1 second max shutter speed limit when not using a flash. Now the other end of the spectrum is the 1/60sec limit when using a flash. It is really anoying that it works so differently than a SLR.

Oh well. Back to Tv to overcome this Canon short sight.

Thank you ... I did not know about the 1/60s limitation, which I assume is the same on the G1.

Try manual mode, in which you can set aperture and shutter as you like. Just be sure to use flash exposure compensation because it will only fire at full power in that mode.

You are right about bouncing the flash - it really makes an improvement.

Cheers,

The G1 had a 1 second limit with or without flash. Unfortunately it was confusing to people. They'd see the flash, think the picture was done, and then they got blur.

It would be nice if this was a menu setting. The P&S'ers would choose the 1/60 sec limit, and those who wanted could go for a slower shutter.

Best of all would be E-TTL in M mode. That way you could set both shutter and aperture and have the flash fill in. It's not impossible, the SLRs work that way.

Of course with the G2 in M mode, you can vary the output of the 420EX using FEC. That might be good enough.