420 vs 550 in high spped sync

I recently purchased the 420ex and I am a little disappointed in the performance . I was hoping to run a higher shutter speed indoors at night to stop action of my dogs. I figured with the extra power over the stock flash, that would be no problem but I am still limited to 1/60 which was the same as the stock flash. Would I have been able to run a higher shutter speed with the 550 or am I doing something wrong?
Any help for this newbie would be appreciated.
Thanks

See p.25 in the 420EX manual and p.125 in the XT manual.FP can be used in P,Tv,A,M modes.

I have no problem setting it too a higher shutter speed. I am just disappointed in performance because any pictures used with a shutter speed higher than 1/60 and max apperature are coming out dark

shutter speed should not matter in flash photography.

you say you want faster shutter speeds, but then you say your pictures are already to dark.

have you played with FEC?

remember that a flash photo is really two exposures:
1. like a regular photo, avalable light exposes the scene.
2. the flash exposes the subject.

that hard part is playing with the ratio between these two exposures.

especially inside, with tungsten lights, the color of the flash and lighting is different. is your converting to B+W, no problem. but with color, it looks realyl amatuerish. your options are to not use a flash and preserve the color of the tungsten - or - use a high enough shutter speed that no tungsten light is allowed to expose the scene.

bouncing your 420 off of a ceiling with a 1/200 shutter speed will be plaenty to "stop your dogs".

the 550 had no advantage over the 420 in the issue you raise.

hope this helps-
$0.02

ridemx2 said:

I recently purchased the 420ex and I am a little disappointed in
the performance . I was hoping to run a higher shutter speed
indoors at night to stop action of my dogs. I figured with the
extra power over the stock flash, that would be no problem but I am
still limited to 1/60 which was the same as the stock flash. Would
I have been able to run a higher shutter speed with the 550 or am I
doing something wrong?

Click to expand...

What mode are you shooting in? If Av or P, you're in for a rude surprise.

See for everything you always wanted to know about EOS flash (but were afreaid to ask).

But if you want the quick version... set the camera to M(anual), 1/60, f/8, ISO 400. Turn on the flash. Don't worry about what the camera meter tells you. Then fire. Is that better?

I have been shooting in Tv mode 1/320 and there black. I am going to give it another try tonite at 1/200.

ridemx2 said:

I have been shooting in Tv mode 1/320 and there black. I am going
to give it another try tonite at 1/200.

Click to expand...

Ridemx2,

I think you can not run at speeds higher than 1/200 because flash sync limit of 350d is 1/200.

FRED

With an external flash and setting it on high speed sync you can shoot on higher shutter speeds. I was hoping that the flash would be bright enough that it would compensate for fast shutter speeds like 1/320, but I guess I was wrong. My best exposure was at 1/60 with the flash at night.

Hi, n,

ridemx2 said:

I recently purchased the 420ex and I am a little disappointed in
the performance . I was hoping to run a higher shutter speed
indoors at night to stop action of my dogs. I figured with the
extra power over the stock flash, that would be no problem but I am
still limited to 1/60 which was the same as the stock flash. Would
I have been able to run a higher shutter speed with the 550 or am I
doing something wrong?

Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean "limited" to 1/60 sec.

In "metered" modes (P, Av, Tv) the ambient metering system seeks proper expposure for the backlground, which in a low ambient light situation will generally call for a slow shutter speed.

In P with flash active, the metering system will not, though, adopt a speed slower than 1/60.

Note that shutter speed does not effect flash exposure, and flash is not really reckoned in setting exposure for the background, and therefore, activation of the flash will not push the shutter speed up in any metered mode (except for the 1/60 sec lower limit in P with flash active).

If you want a faster shutter speed (why?), you wll need to use M mode and just set it.

You refer to "high speed sync". Are you just using that term to mean flash operation with a relatively-high shutter speed (for example, 1/160 sec)?

That term specifically means operation with flash for a shutter speed faster than the "X-sync" shutter speed limit (1/200 sec for the 300D and 350D). It requires a special flash mode ("high-speed sync").

I suspect you aren't talking about that. If you, lemme know and I'll give the (quite different) story of that.

Best regards,

Doug

I stand corrected.I dont know what I was doing wrong last night, but i got a room dark and took one picture at 1/60 and one at 1/500 and the exporsure was the same.
1/60



1/500

Doug

ridemx2 said:

I stand corrected.I dont know what I was doing wrong last night,
but i got a room dark and took one picture at 1/60 and one at 1/500
and the exporsure was the same.

Click to expand...

If you didn't have FP (i.e. high speed sync) mode enabled, the camera would have automagically shifted your 1/500 shutter down to 1/200. FP mode has its uses, but that ain't one of them.

Regular flash, shot at 1/60 to 1/200, works just fine to freeze action. That's because the flash duration is about 1/2000.

Here it is again...

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

It is long, but it explains flash photography with EOS better than anything else I've seen.

THANK YOU