Why does my camera want such long shutter speed times when I m using flash in Av mode?
This happens because you are trying to take a flash photo in low-light conditions and the camera is in Av (aperture priority) mode or the night PIC (icon) mode if your camera has it. In Av, night icon and Tv (shutter speed priority) modes the camera meters for ambient (existing) light and fills in the foreground subject using the flash. It does not assume that the primary light source is the flash, and therefore the shutter speed it sets is the same as it would set if you weren t using flash at all. In low light this results in slow shutter photography. If the shutter speed is very long you will, therefore, need a tripod to avoid motion blur during the exposure. Alternatively you can switch to full auto (green rectangle) or Program (P) mode, which automatically expose for the flash-illuminated subject and not the background. These modes try to ensure that the shutter speed is high enough to let you handhold the camera without a tripod. The drawback of P and basic modes is that photos t
