Problem with a 18-55mm lens

Hi

After recently droping my camera and damaging my standard 18-55mm lens I've just bought a used one off Ebay which seemed good value (£31). The lens has seemed to work fine, however I hadn't tried it with flash until later today!

The fastest shutter speed I can seem to get is 1/45th often just a 1/30th, clearly something is wrong!

Has anyone experienced this? Is there something obvious I'm not doing? Or have I just bought a lemon!

Simon

PS This could teach me not to be to keen to leave feedback!!

Are you sure you haven't damaged your camera as well?

What speed do you get when you set the X setting?

Have you tried using the flash with a different lens attached? Maybe the camera sustained some damage when you dropped it?

Beaten by quick-fingers JR yet again!

Hi John and Hefty1

I've used the lens with my 50-200mm and it has been fine.

With regard to the X setting I did get 1/180th of a second!

Any other thoughts?

Simon

What mode are you using the camera in normally? If it's in (P)rogram mode then it could just be that that happens to be the speed the camera feels is most appropriate.

Set the mode dial to M, make sure high speed flash is disabled, turn on the flash, then try to get higher than 1/180th. If you can't, it's fine.

Done that and yes 1/180th is the max.

What I can't understand is why I can't get above 1/45th in Auto, P or Av?

To be honest less than a 1/60th is pretty useless (isn't it?).

Simon

1/30th is normal with this lens at 18mm. That's what my K20D is selecting now with Av mode and the built-in flash popped up.

If relying on flash for illumination, a slow shutter speed doesn't matter because the duration of the flash is short enough to freeze motion.

Try Tv mode if you want a faster shutter speed.

In all three of the modes you mention the camera is setting the shutter speed based on an ambient light exposure.

Less than 1/60th is far from useless if you are trying to balance ambient light and flash. The flash duration is anything up to 1/40000th so it's pretty much irrelevant what the shutter speed is. When using flash, it's the aperture that controls the exposure, not the shutter speed.

Try this, Set the camera to manual, shutter to 1/125, aperture to f11, take a flash shot of a subject about 4 meters away. Note what the image looks like. Change the aperture up and down leaving shutter speed at 1/125th. Note the change in exposure. Now set the aperture to f11 and change the shutter speed up and down. Note . . . not a lot of difference until you get to the very slow speeds.

I don't think you have any problem with your lens, flash, or camera. Just try not to drop it again, it might not survive quite as well next time.

When you take a photo using flash, the shutter speed is *effectively* the duration of the flash burst - regardless of how long the shutter is *actually* open for.

So although the camera has set the shutter speed at 1/60, the actual speed will be somewhere in the region of 1/30,000.

The exception to this is where the ambient light is bright enough to neccessitate a shutter speed faster than 1/180 (the maximum flash sync speed); in this case you need to lower the ISO, stop down the aperture and/or use an external flash with a "High Speed" facility. This is usually when you're photographing against the sun outdoors.

Still, at least your lens isn't broken.

Sorry guy's I've just realised I'm stupid!!!

Having not used proper cameras for many years (OM1's 20 odd years ago) I was pleased to see that the modern DSLR had much faster shutter speeds when using flash so I was expecting say a 1/60th to 1/250th. Not realising that slower shutter speeds could also be used.

The photo I was trying to take last night was at the wider end of the lens.

It was only later when playing around that I realised that when it was at 55mm the shutter speed had been reduced to a 1/60th... ooops!

The learning curve continues....

Thanks for all the replies without your help I would still have been scratching my head.

Simon