My 4Ti will not open the flash and keeps on clicking. Any help?

[jrhoffman75]

Sounds like it might be stuck and camera spring can't pop it up. Try using a thin bladed knife and see if you can carefully pry it up. 

[jrn]

Thanks,  One other suggestion was to pry it open and then used compressed air to clean out the spring area.   Believe it or not, it now opens.

[TCampbell]

It's just a spring latch that normally wants to pop open - save for a catch-hook that holds it down.  The "clicking noise" is the servo retracting the catch hook so that the spring will pop it up (clearly that was working because you heard the noise).  

If the hinge gets gunked up then the spring is not overcoming whatever is jamming it.

Incidentally, don't "oil" it because the oil would merely attract even more dust.  We usually suggest just a drop of denatured alcohol to help dissolve anything -- because the alcohol will evaporate on its own.

[jrn]

Thanks, I just tried blowinig it out with compressed air and that has seemed to fix the poroblem for now.   I may go ahead and put a drop of alchol in there as a premptive strike.

[TTMartin]

---

@jrn wrote:

Thanks, I just tried blowinig it out with compressed air and that has seemed to fix the poroblem for now.   I may go ahead and put a drop of alchol in there as a premptive strike.

---

In the future avoid using compressed air anywhere near your camera. It can blow dust into parts you wouldn't want it, and embed dirt in some parts permanently damagingly them.

There should be something similar to this in your manual.

• Never use canned air or gas to clean the sensor. The blowing force can damage the sensor or the spray gas can freeze on the sensor.

Stick with a bulb blower like a Rocket Blower in the future.