Need Help Troubleshooting! - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

11/01/2004 07:16:03 PM · #1

Hello, hello.

I posed a message several days ago about a problem I'm having with my camera, and I want to follow up on it a bit. I've been having trouble where the camera will once in a while fire a shot, but it will be completely black. There will be EXIF data and everything, but just a blank image. It only happens once in a while.

I shot the Steelers game yesterday, and out of 500 or so shots, it only happened maybe two or three frames. I shot about 200 at the Bush appearance in Pittsburgh this morning, and had two or three more instances.

I'm also finding that I'm having a heck of a time getting the autofocus to work correctly on distance shots. So many of my Steelers shots are getting the main player blurry with a focused background (yes, I've checked and double-checked my focus settings); and even with still subjects at podiums at the political rally, I was not able to get the subject in focus... it wants to focus on the background. I'm pulling my hair out!

I don't know whether these symptoms are at all related, but I wanted to spell out my issues as best as possible.

I took it to a camera shop today, and they didn't have any concrete ideas for me, but suggested perhaps the battery is going funky. Has anyone had any experience similar to this? In a prior thread, someone had suggested a corrupt CF card, but I've had these anomolies on more than one card. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

soup

Canon EOS-30D

11/01/2004 07:22:43 PM · #2

the shop didn't mention anything about the shutter's heavyish - use?
i have never heard of anything but a battery going dead, or not charging fully, and would imagine the cameras battery meter would show a 'battery low' message if it wasn't charged to the correct voltage.

i am curious what this issue is caused by...

have you tried contacting Nikon?

dickwilhelm

Canon EOS-30D

Canon EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM

11/01/2004 07:35:36 PM · #3

Alan,

As Tim said, it is unlikely that the battery is the problem especially if it looks OK in the LCD screen. Is it possible for you to upload the current firmware from the Nikon web site. Even if you have the latest rev, a reload of it may fix the problem and certainly would not adversly affect the warranty (if you have any left). Otherwise, I think you are looking at some sort of help from the techs at Nikon.

Dick

11/01/2004 07:48:29 PM · #4

I told them that I was in the 27,000 shot range, and they didn't seem to think that the shutter was an issue. I'm gonna go ahead & order the battery to give it a try.

Oddly, I mentioned this to my brother, who is a photographer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette... and he actually had a similar problem with the D2H he uses. He actually brought up the possibility of it being a battery issue, too... so I heard this from two different people in two different conversations today. Hmph...

Originally posted by soup:

the shop didn't mention anything about the shutter's heavyish - use?

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

11/01/2004 07:49:48 PM · #5

That would be nice if they allowed it! They provide downloadable firmware upgrades for a few of their DSLRs, but you actually have to send in the D100 for the upgrade (the specs for the upgrade don't mention any oddity of this sort, either).

Originally posted by dickwilhelm:

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

11/01/2004 08:48:39 PM · #6

Alan,
When you get one of the "black frames", if you bring it into PS, and radically increase brightness via levels or curves, do you see your normal fixed-pattern noise?
If so, I might be inclined to think the shutter is just misfiring occasionally.

11/01/2004 09:41:11 PM · #7

Yes, there are specs of noise there. The guy at the camera shop had also suggested turning off the noise reduction, saying that the camera behaves a little differently in the way it saves files with that feature turned on. I wonder if that'll help... or if I'm doomed with a Fatal Shutter Problem from Hell...

Originally posted by kirbic: