Hey everyone!
Thank you for reading. I'm just learning about things like shutter speed. When I am taking pictures outdoors, I can move my shutter speed to whatever I want. However, when I try to take a picture with flash for whatever reason (internal)- I can't move it beyond 1/200. Is there anything I can do to solve this? I'm trying to take a portrait indoors with the flash, and pictures are becoming blurred if the subject moves while my camera slowly takes the picture. I'm unable to just snap a shot and capture a fleeting moment.
Sorry, but yes, 1/200 second is the maximum shutter sync speed. Faster is not possible. This is explained at
Maximum Shutter Sync Speed for Flash .
A few top camera models can do 1/250 second with flash, but that's not much difference. Actually, 1/200 second is considered fast today, for years in the old days it was 1/60 second maximum with flash. And this is normally not much issue indoors, when the ambient is dim, and not able to blur the motion that the flash already stopped.
A few hot shoe speedlight models can do a special HSS flash mode, which is a very different deal, but it can allow fastest shutter speed, but at very reduced flash power. But we would never consider using HSS mode indoors, the regular speedlight mode (at 1/200 second) will run circles around HSS (power, distance, range). And no internal flash model can do HSS, and not all cameras can do it.
The flashes (including the internal flash) are called speedlights, because at lower power levels (which greater flash power allows), they can be extremely fast (called speedlights), and they are what is used to stop fastest motion with flash, for example, water drop splashes, or bursting water balloons. For example, this picture stops motion when the balloon is still only partially broken, and the water in the balloon is still in place, not collapsed yet. This picture was taken in the shade under a patio in the afternoon, not bright, but not near dark. The shutter speed was one second, while the balloon was poked with a knitting needle to burst it. The flash stops the action, so long as the ambient is not bright enough to blur what the flash already stopped.
But this was a regular higher powered hot shoe speedlight (ISO 400 f/16 one second). The internal flash is very low powered, and having to operate at its highest power slows it down. Still, portraits should not involve much motion to be much problem.
What was your ISO and fstop that caused the problem? I'm guessing that high ISO did you in. High ISO and wide aperture makes the camera very sensitive to the continuous light. Continuous light cannot stop motion. But low ISO at say f/8 can shut it out, so that the flash is basically the only light, and it can stop the motion. But the flash does need some power at ISO 100 f/8.
Essentially most normal formal studio portraits use flash and a 1/200 second shutter speed (because the shutter won't sync flash faster). The difference is those flashes are bigger units, regular hot shoe speedlights maybe, but capable of higher power than the little internal flash, which allows the camera to use low ISO and stopped down aperture (like ISO 100 f/8) which the point is, if without the flash, this would be a dark black picture, which cannot blur anything. Then the flash itself lights the picture, and it is quite fast, stopping action. A regular speedlight like say an $80 Yongnuo YN565 EX model allows higher power, then could be at least 1/1000 second duration, more likely 1/4000 second, much faster than the shutter speed. Speedlight flash is how we stop motion. It just typically takes a little more power than the little internal flash can do.
