Rebel T5i flash not working! HELP

[apedroza15]

The built-in flash on my EOS Rebel T5i is malfunctioning. When the flash is down/off the pictures are as they should be according to the light/settings. But with the flash open/on, the flash either flashes but fails to illuminate the shot or doesnt flash at all but picture is still dark.

Seems like when the flash goes off, it's either too early or too late, providing no flash whatsoever to the actual shot. Already reset the camera's settings. Not sure what else I can do but hopefully someone can give some helpful advice so I can get back to regularly using my T5i.

Thanks!

Alex

[TCampbell]

There are lots of possibilities here.  Can you upload a sample image?

Any built-in flash will have a limited distance at which it can adequately light up a subject.  For a built-in pop-up flash that distance is usually in the 10-12' range (but changing the ISO setting can increase that range.)

Also, once the flash fires, it needs a moment to be able to fire again IF the previous shot (or shots) drained most of it's power.  The camera charges up a capacitor which has a stored charge that can be used to fire the flash.  If only a very low power burst was needed then the camera would be ready to fire the flash again immedaitely.  But if the next shot requires too much power and the capacitor hasn't had enough time to store up enough charge (usually just a few seconds is all it takes) then the flash wont fire.  Basically if you are rapidly taking shots you can run into this situation.  But if you want several seconds between shots then this wouldn't be a problem.

It is also possible to put the flash in a mode where it is used to communicate with other off-camera flashes.  This can be very confusing becasue you would actually see the flash fire, but when you look at the shot the images would be dark.  This is because the Canon E-TTL flash metering system will fire a low-power test burst of light before the camera even open the shutter.  If the on-camera flash in a mode where it is attempting to control off-camera flashes, then it will use optical light to communicate with those remote flashes.  It will then go dark when the camera opens the shutter to take the shot (and presumably at that point the off-camera flashes would fire).  This all happens so fast that you'd swear it only flahsed once.

It would not matter if you don't actually have off-camera flash ... but there is a flash-control menu in the camera menu and you'd want to make sure that isn't set to the "disable" option.

[Richard]

Hi Apedroza15,

Thanks for posting.

If this is a new or recent development, I recommend resetting your camera to its default settings. If clearing the camera settings fails to resolve this issue, I recommend repeating the process, then clearing your camera's Custom Functions.

Before doing either, I do recommend making a note of your menu settings and custom functions.

For information about clearing your camera's settings and Custom Functions, please click here.