I own a Canon 350D Rebel XT, and from time to time the flash makes this awful blinding flickering?

Question: which is rather embarassing to me. Can anybody explain what is going on? Does it have something to do with the cameras difficulty with autofocus? Can I avoid it by using manual focus? What are som other solutions?

Answer: There's two reasons why your camera may be doing this. The Canon SLRs do not have a separate AF assist lamp, unlike their Nikon counterparts which use a Xenon lamp. As a result, the SLRs will use the flash as an AF-assist lamp to make that "awful blinding flickering." Another reason you may be experiencing this might also be "red-eye" reduction, which uses the flash flickering to force your subject's eyes to stop down and hide the red retinal reflection. To eliminate this problem, make sure 1) your red-eye reduction is turned off and 2) that you go through your menus and disable the AF assist. Alternatively, you can switch to manual focus, or you could try turning on a lamp to help the AF system. I do also know of people who carry flashlights or use LEDs to help with focusing (and LED focusing assist lights are available commercially, designed to screw into the tripod mount on the camera bottom). You might also try a hotshoe flash; I believe some Canon models have an infrared AF assist which is less intrusive than the blinding flickering. The most expensive alternative would be to switch to Nikon, and you might not be happy with the Xenon lamp, although it doesn't flicker (it's steady). Nikon also has its own infrared solutions too.

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