I’ve already pawed through the owner’s manual and can find no help elsewhere online, so I turn to the teeming millions for help with what is probably a very stupid camera problem.
Tonight at the big annual formal dance (apparent theme: Hgh-Class Opium Den) I discovered that the automatic flash on my Pentax IQZoom EZY-R has suddenly stopped working. Previously I have only had to press the shutter button halfway to make it detect whether or not a flash was necessary, and the camera would turn on the flash automatically if it was. For no apparent reason it no longer does this. I can turn the flash on and off manually, but this is kind of a pain as I am a lousy at judging when I need to use it. According to the manual the camera is supposed to default to auto flash mode ever time it is turned on, but I have turned the camera on and off many times and the auto flash still won’t work. There doesn’t seem to be a manual option to get it into that mode. Does anyone have any suggestions, or should I just learn to make do with my now not-quite-fully-automatic camera?
Sounds to me like the camera broke. Of all the P&S cameras that I’ve owned (uh, it’s like a bad habit), none have a way to manually reset what the default initial power-on state is.
Is it still under warranty? I bought a Pentax about 3 years ago, and the warranty at the time was one year.
How dark was it? On some auto focus/auto flash cameras, if it too dark to pick up an image on auto focus, it figures it is foolish to use the flash; so it doesn’t let you. Have you tried it in low light situations since it didn’t work? If this is indeed the case there are ways of getting around it.
What power source does your flash use? Occasionally, batteries can be low and not let the auto flash work.
Most P&S I’ve used have a single “flash” button that toggles the flash mode between on, off, and auto. (And sometimes a few other modes) Is yours like this? When you say you can turn it on manually, do you mean that the flash will work if you set it to “ON” but not when set to “auto”? Have you tried it in a completely dark room, just to check that the sensor isn’t getting fooled by something? For example, if the subject is dark but there is a light shining on the camera itself, the sensor could get fooled into thinking the scene is bright.
I suppose you could try removing the battery for a few minutes and see if that resets the settings.
You might be interested in the Ricoh GR-1s. It’s very expensive for a P&S (almost $500) but it has actual switches and dials for flash and mode settings. As in things that actually go “click” and stay there, not buttons.
There is apparently no way to manually set it to auto. According to the manual, this is supposed to be the setting the camera defaults to whenever it is turned on. I can set the flash to “on” and “off” manually, but the auto feature seem to be completely disabled now.
I’ve tested the camera in various ranges of light, and just tried it again after letting it sit for a half hour with no battery. Nothing works. I just can’t figure out how the default setting could have possible gotten screwed up, especially since it was working fine just moments before it stopped working and I didn’t drop it or anything.
You’re going to need to remove the lithium backup battery and the main battery before it will reset to factory settings. Check the 3V lithium backup battery. If it is bad (5 years is about max for it’s lifetime) it could be messing up your settings.
There are indeed ways to turn it from auto if I remember this camera correctly. I shot with one when I was working with a newspaper in New Mexico and I accidently turned it off. But I am inclined to agree with Astro regarding the battery. As he suggested, the length of time is about right.
In either case take it too a good camera shop and let them take a look.
