Canon rebel T1i won't take a photo and gives message busy

Hi, I have to Canon Rebel t1i and I had the same problem (built in flash not working). I tried a number of remedies I found on forums etc but none worked. I then tried this. In the external flash housing is a metal sprung plate which surrounds the five circular pins (one big, four small at the rear). If you get a small straight headed screwdriver and lift the front of this plate and at the same time pull it back towards you it will come out altogether.
I then removed the four small screws being careful not to drop them and took off the mount for the external flash and then tried the flash it opened straight away. I then cleaned all the area of the mount and the two plates and replaced them all ensuring I fitted them exactly as before. I then checked the camera again and presto working fine. I hope this helps everyone with the problem.
Kevin (East riding of Yorkshire)

It means that the transfer is in process. It's letting you know that you shouldn't turn off your camera - it is busy!

Pros avoid this very common problem by using a separate card reader instead of the camera for downloads.

The T1i does not have this feature, like most digital SLR cameras. You should just look through the viewfinder to take the photo, which gives you a much more precise view of the photo, where you can better assess the correctness of focus, etc.
This feature is called "Live View" and is available on some newer or higher end models.

Check to see if you have the flash set on "red-eye". This causes the flash to pre-flash to eliminate red-eye in your photos. It's a real pain for most photos but if you're shooting in low light, it will eliminate the red-eye.

In the manual mode, you have to set the focus (distance to subject), aperture and shutter speed. Did you set all of them before you shot the picture?

I wish you know that you need to press LIVEVIEW button marked red Dot to enter live view mode.
Further more it will work in P,T,A,M modes and video camera modes only.Still it does not show live view the camera has a fault.
If this has solved it don't forget to rate me.

Try the following ones:

1. Phottix® Cleon I - Wire/Wireless Remote C6 Set

2. Wireless Remote Control V2s for Canon Rebel T1i

You can check on Ebay about them.

Regards,.

Are you connected to the PC? If so it is processing the download, thus it is busy working.

If the flash fires a full charge(eg. in a dark environment) then this message will appear whilst it recharges. If the message appears all the time and you cannot take a photo there is most likely a problem. Try taking some pictures without the flash card to eliminate that first.