I have an EOS Rebel T5i and the flash rarely works. It flashes, but the picture is still dark.

[tammykc]

My Rebel T5i's flash isn't working.  it doesn't matter what setting it's on, it doesn't work all of the time, maybe 5% of the time it actually flashed successfully.  Often the flash will actually go off, but the picture is dark.  This make my camera useless unless I'm taking outside pics during the day.  Any ideas?

[ebiggs1]

First off, when things don't go as you think they should is to reset the camera to factory.  Your manual tells you how but removing all batteries for a while.  Say over a night or two.  If you have to reset the date/time you did a factory reset.

Second is to make sure your batteries and any charger are worjing properly.  The batteries are fully charged?

You need to do this basci easy stuff (and free) before any other actions to diagnose it. 

Most likely you have a setting wrong.  

[RobertTheFat]

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@tammykc wrote:

My Rebel T5i's flash isn't working.  it doesn't matter what setting it's on, it doesn't work all of the time, maybe 5% of the time it actually flashed successfully.  Often the flash will actually go off, but the picture is dark.  This make my camera useless unless I'm taking outside pics during the day.  Any ideas?

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Keep in mind that the basic ETTL paradigm is (and this is only a slight oversimplification) that all flash should be fill flash. To put it another way, ETTL is pathalogically averse to blown highlights. By default, the camera will expose for the brightest thing in the picture, and all else will be darker. This isn't all bad; when lighting conditions are favorable, it produces properly lit, natural-looking images.

To combat this effect, you can

- Expose for the background; IOW, actually use fill flash.

- Use bounce flash, which produces the more even light that ETTL handles best.

- Set the flash to manual, and find the power setting that suits your artistic intent.