Flash problem with my xti

When I am taking picture in my room without flash my camera take picture quickly and easily. When I turn it to auto, the flash will automatically come up. For about the first 5-7 picture the camera take picture with flash without having a pause period, but after those 5-7 shots it will have a really long pause period. Saying flash is busy. Its about 1 - 5 sec long. Which is really long. In this pause period it does nothing. It doesn't focus or anything in that matter. Any in put on this???

Sounds like the flash is recharging. Is the battery full? Are the first 5 or so pics real quick or burst?

really quick

Yup... the flash is recharging. My XTi behaves the exact same way. I ended up buying an external flash 430ex and I am able to take more photos in succession. But really, I only found the flash recharge to be a problem when I was playing around with the camera, hitting the shutter button like crazy. In real shooting situations I have not felt limited at all.

Yep, the built in flash is only good for snapshots and emergancy flash. Get a hotshoe flash. The results will be like getting a new camera! Its that big of a difference. Sigma makes a good e-ttl flash if you can't afford the canon.

After you drain the flash capacitor to a certain level even an external flash will start taking longer to refresh. Granted, the higher output capabilities will make a difference in howe soon this happens, but if you start shooting at more distant subjects, you'll hit the wall there too.