I been shooting Motocross lately and I often have to use fill flash because the reces take place a mid day with very harsh light. I am shooting with a 20D and a Speedlite 430, and when turn the flash on, my shutter speed is locked to a max of 1/250.
Is there a way to go around the flash sync and increase the shutter speed when using flash.
I appologize if this is a dumb question, but I almost never use flash, except in this conditions.
Loco, I have never used the 420 model but there should be a button that has a symbol that looks kinda like the fast forward button on your dvd player, when you push it you can then increase your shutter speed. Look in the manual for high speed sync function. Good luck.
I have used the High Speed Sync option in the flash, wich alow me to use a faster shutter speed, however, the resulting image looks like the flash did no fire, the light seems to be very weak. I even increased the flash output by 2 stops and the result is the same. I know it is not the batteries, they are new.
When using HSS, the flash pulses during the exposure rather than a single burst ... this reduces the distance the flash is effective ... especially in very bright conditions ... it works fine when you can place the flash very close to the subject ... but not so much when working at normal safe distances for sports.
I've had success using HSS (1/800) by increasing my ISO to 3200 or higher and firing the flash on manual full power. I then fine tune with aperture adjustment.
Shooting Sprint Cars at a distance of say 40' or so.
Hope that helps you some
Hmm, this is not really a dumb question, it's actually one of the things that many people find the most difficult to "Wrap their head around." The topic can be somewhat technically complex if you choose to make it such, but let me see if I can shed some light on this for you. This isn't 100% technically accurate, but it'll hopefully help.
When you start using flash, you have the 'sync speed' which is essentially the fastest shutter speed you can use with a flash. This is 1/200 or 1/250 on most cameras. If you need a faster shutter speed, your only options are High Speed Sync (if your particular setup supports it), or to risk catching your shutter in motion. High speed sync loses *ALOT* of your distance/output power really quickly (inverse square property of light). If you catch your shutter in motion, what you'll notice is that there is basically a line through your image where it's substantially darker.
So now the big question I have is. What are you trying to accomplish by changing your shutter speed. Contrary to what you would actually tend to think, increasing the shutter often times does not actually help you with things like motion blur (except for extremely fast subjects.) One of the properties of dealing with flash, is that it tends to "Freeze" an object in motion. So while not technically accurate, a 1/200 w/ a flash can appear more crisp than a 1/200 w/ ambient. Just different beasts.
Also important to note, is how to properly expose with flashes, if that's your problem. Generally speaking, the shutter speed will control your ambient light, and your aperature controls your flashes. That is to say, whatever the flash isn't lighting up, (ie the background or area's outside of the path of the light from the flash) will be best exposed by adjustments to theshutter. The Aperature/flash power is what really effects how much flash is visible. If you're seeing too much flash, use a smaller aperature. This is partly why things can get so confusing, most people often think "use a larger aperature to get a faster shutter speed to freeze motion" and here I'm mentioning use a 1/200 shutter and a f/11. It's just a bit backwards from what most people intuitively feel. ISO tends to impact both. So on a brightly lit day it's not uncommon for me to be shooting ISO 100, f/11, 1/200 shutter.
PS Some of the best scenario's for flash is when the subject is about 2 stops separated from ambient in my experience. (But this definately varies on circumstance.)
Anyways, maybe give me some more details about what you're trying to accomplish and we'll see how we can help.
if done in motorcross will this also apply to football on a sunday afternoon...
I am shooting a few football games this weekend, youth football,
1st game is 11am then 1pm.
In "general" you can try this trick with any DSLR, set the Max Shutter speed sync speed somewhere between 1/200th and 1/350th, then by adjusting the ISO get a reasonable F Number (the higher the iso the smaller the F) the smaller the F the less "flash" power you need. I know this sounds weird but it will make perfectly good sense to you when you actually do it. Now try this out using a static subject at your typical distance. Take good notes!
Now here is some good news . The old CCD chipped cameras ie the 1D and older Nikons (DX format) had a shutter sync speed of 1/500th (canon 1D) or higher (Nikon users please correct, I believe only achieved with dedicated Nikon flashes). Unfortunately the CMOS chips are limited generally to 1/250th or so . Back in the "old" film days Metz made some units that would sync at a very high speed (note the units are very expensive, etc... don't know if they will work with DSLR's).
Now if somebody could make the rain go away for a wedding I am photographing on Saturday it would be appreciated . Come to think of it, it never rains inside a hockey rink!
. The old CCD chipped cameras ie the 1D and older Nikons (DX format) had a shutter sync speed of 1/500th (canon 1D) or higher (Nikon users please correct, I believe only achieved with dedicated Nikon flashes). Unfortunately the CMOS chips are limited generally to 1/250th or so 
. Back in the "old" film days Metz made some units that would sync at a very high speed (note the units are very expensive, etc... don't know if they will work with DSLR's).
. Come to think of it, it never rains inside a hockey rink!