update 2 years(ish) later: please help
so i tried this, i took photos with different shutter speeds. I was shooting manual for all photos with f1.8, iso of 200, white balance: Flash, my first shot was 1/200(max i can shoot with flash on) and my camera(or photos) did NOT pick up the flash and so with 1/160, 1/125, 1/100, 1/80, 1/60, 1/50, 1/40, 1/30, 1/25, 1/20, 1/25, 1/13, 1/10, 1/8 .... but anything solwer than 1/8 i was able to see flash on my photos ( 1/6, 1/5, 1/4, 0"3, 0"4...etc) is there anything that I'm missing in flash photography, now i know that sppedsync is important with the camera's shutter and the flash itself. but I'm sure there is a way to shoot at 1/200 with flash. just to clarify again, the flash does fire in all the photos i took but anything faster than 1/8, you wont get your photo lit at all. i will provide the images for 1/8vs 1/6 and just know that in in both images i was able to see the flash firing with my eyes
I've tried many things: I've changed the flash's batteries and also the camera's batteries, none of them seem the problem. I'm using a Canon t3i and sunpak digiflash 3000. I've tried the internal camera flash and the pics turned out well, but when I connect the sunpak flash and turn it on the image is dark - darker than when there is no flash on at all.
I've tried to take a picture in the mirror while the external flash is on. The flash fired off, but in the picture the flash seems to have no light at all. I'm thinking that the problem should be somewhere between the camera and flash the spot where they connect. Please help I want this problem fixed.