A720 IS - erratic flash behaviour, advice please !

[swayzak]

Hi

This camera behaves very strangely, especially in low-lighting.

Often it just refuses to take a picture, or takes one when the "flash" symbol is light in the viewfinder, but doesn't flash.

This even happens if the flash is turned to "On" (not just "Auto").

Sometimes if you play about changing the shooting mode / type of autofocus it might work, bit often not.

Often when this happens, the orange focus assist light (on front of camera) stays permanently lit until you take finger off shutter button.

Also, it sometimes doesn't want to take a picture in daylight ! You either get the focus square (on LCD image)) staying orange or not appearing at all.

I bought this camera over 12 months ago and Canon haven't been very helpful e.g fault vs some setting that needs changing vs operator error etc. - all they have advised is send it for repair.

Can anyone shed further light on this problem ?


thanks

[JimC]

The first thing that comes to mind is batteries, as borderline batteries (or a bit of oxidation on battery contacts) can sometimes cause erratic behavior (especially when using flash)

I'd make sure to try a different set of known good, fully charged, high capacity NiMH batteries in it and see if that fixes it.

I'd also try resetting the camera. With some Canon models, if you press and hold the menu button down for more than a few seconds, it will ask you if you want to reset the camera. Your A720 IS also has a Reset All menu choice in it's setup menus. Here's the screen it's on:

[swayzak]

Originally Posted by JimC

The first thing that comes to mind is batteries, as borderline batteries (or a bit of oxidation on battery contacts) can sometimes cause erratic behavior (especially when using flash)

I'd make sure to try a different set of known good, fully charged, high capacity NiMH batteries in it and see if that fixes it.

I'd also try resetting the camera. With some Canon models, if you press and hold the menu button down for more than a few seconds, it will ask you if you want to reset the camera. Your A720 IS also has a Reset All menu choice in it's setup menus. Here's the screen it's on:

Thanks - I'll try that.

[swayzak]

Well the Reset All seems to have fixed it (have only played around with it briefly however)

No idea what setting change would have made it behave like this though ..