How do I turn on the flash?

There are three common fixes to a non-working flash. First, make sure your camera is not in Silent Mode. Next, make sure your shutter is set to either auto or MSHTR. If you find that neither of those settings were activated, your solution might be as simple as opening the flash. Open the flash by pressing the P55 button, which is the small, spring activated push-lever located on the left side of the viewfinder.

Jesse, after I added comment about how suck it is having to send in the camera for repair the stupid flash not popping up, I inserted a thin blade into the flash opening (do not force, just kind of helping it open) and push the "P55" button the same and wolla! the flash popped open.. I think in my case, there might be some sticky stuff in the opening which prevented the flash from opening. I wiped around the opening with a damp tissue and tried a couple times, flash oped every time. Try it and see if it works for you.

I found on my fz300 if I have HDR mode turned on there is no flash function. So I turn off HDR when I need to use flash now.

FZ300 reset to factory setting and turned setting dial off of “iA” mode enabled the Flash menu item for me.

One other setting that will cause the Flash button to grey out is HDR. It is on screen 4 of the recording menu. Try turning it off and it might allow you to adjust your flash settings.

in my case i believe the preset i had that prevented the flash was the electronic shutter (actually, this and the seilent mode), so i turned it off and it worked. Luckyly enough the setup is on the same 4th recording menu as the HDR setting. Thanks for posting about this subject!