The flash on my Canon A640 refuses to work!

Hi everyone, I hope somebody with a bit more knowledge may be able to help me. I have already e-mailed Canon regarding this and they were less than helpful.

I have the Canon A640. No fancy bits, just as it came. Every now and again in the last couple of months I turn the camera on, get ready to take a picture, push down the button and nothing happens. On the screen the arrow that shows the flash is on just flashes at me. I'd fiddle around with it a bit, turning it on and off, looking through the settings, putting the batteries in and out etc. until eventually it would randomly start working fine again. Then about a month ago it just decided to never ever go back to being fine again. I'm at my wits end as I used to use the camera regularly, whereas now it is only able to take a photo if everyone stands completely still and I set it to "no flash", and this is no good at all!

If anyone has any ideas they would be greatly appreciated. I've tried changing batteries etc. Does it just need to go in for repair?

Sorry for the long post, and many thanks for any replies

Sounds like a loose wire to me... or a dry joint. The good news is, it's more than likely fixable, the bad news is that canon will more than likley just refer you to one of their uk repair specialists as they did me.. said specialists wanted almost the cost of a replacement camera to just fix the broken underside screwthread, so you might be just as well lobbing it in the bin and replacing it.

Repair costs are astronomical these days - it's become a throw away nation - by the time you're done with the repair + vat + post and packing both ways, you may as well have a new one. The 640 is old hat now though very capable, but when the repair costs almost as much as a new one - well - whats the point.

The cheapest fix IMHO, would be to get a 3rd party add on flash that sits on an arm which attaches to the underside screwthread.

The official slave flash comes in at £20 cheaper than a repair and is 2x as powerful as the built in flash. You CAN get slaves as cheap as £15 though, so it pays to shop around.

Just my 2p.

http://www.digital-cameras.com …n_slave_flash_h​f_dc1.html
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk …ewItem?_trksid=​p1638.m122

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Well, a slave flash won't work unless the in-camera flash is able to fire so that's not a solution. Is the A640 still under warranty?