SD780IS Issue - Inconsistent Flash Results

My daughter has a SD780IS camera and, since it was bought, has noted that she often will get different results for different instances of the same shot when using flash.

A common scenario: use "Auto" setting, take a shot in a fairly dark scene, flash fires. The first shot comes up dark, like the flash was off-sync. Take the exact same shot again right after the first and results are just fine.

Another common scenario: same settings as above. First shot way too dark, second shot way too light, last shot exactly correct.

I've poked around with this a bit a noticed that every time the shot comes up bad in my tests, the shutter speed is 1/15. The next shot will usually go to 1/60 shutter and all is well. So, when it does not function correctly, it's like the camera flash knows it needs to fire, but the shutter speed does not set accordingly.

Time to take this one back or send it in? Or does anyone have some other thoughts? Thanks for any advice!

sounds like you are not waiting for the flash to fully charge on the first shot, The camera may shoot before the flash has fully charged

hnikesch wrote in post #11359173
sounds like you are not waiting for the flash to fully charge on the first shot, The camera may shoot before the flash has fully charged

Thanks for the thought - but the flash actually does fire and this occurs after having the unit on for any amount of time (a few seconds up to many minutes). I can tell when the dark picture is going to occur before firing the flash, because I can see that the shutter speed is low - usually 1/15 of a second. It's almost like the camera wants to default to 1/15 sec. for flash photos sometimes. Then other times, speed defaults to 1/60 sec. and all is well.