Tuesday 6 November 2018

How do I get my Canon 60D to use short shutter speeds with flash in Av mode?




Last night I tried to get some club shots with my 60D (with the 16-35 2.8L lens) at ISO 1600.


I had about ¹⁄₁₅ — ¹⁄₂₀ seconds at f/2.8, all in Av mode.


When I raised the pop-up flash, I hoped that the camera would decrease the time to ¹⁄₆₀ or ¹⁄₂₅₀ to freeze some of the motion, but the timing remained as it there would be no flash. I had to switch to "M" to get the desired result. I know from my 550D that on that camera there is a setting that automatically switches the timing as soon as one raises the flash. To make a long story short, is there a camera fault or did I miss a setting?



Answer



This behavior is perfectly normal for a Canon 60D, and most other Canon EOS bodies. When you select Av Mode with E-TTL in lower light environments, the camera assumes you want to expose the entire scene correctly for the ambient light and then use the flash to illuminate your subject in the foreground.


If you wish to disable this slow sync feature, use custom function C.Fn. I-7 and select either option 1 (for Tv of 1/60-1/250 sec) or 2 (for Tv of 1/250 sec.). What you descibe in your question is the result of the default option 0, which will allow shutter speeds between 30 sec and 1/250 sec.


See also this answer to Why is flash TTL metering independent from ambient light metering?


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