Issues with Df mirror

I last used my Df on Friday(the 17th) and it worked perfectly fine. I was using it with the 24-120mm f/4, and on that particular day was using it to photograph a car I'm getting ready to sell. I took ~100 photos, and this was close to the end.

Today, I'd wanted to use some pre-AI lenses on it to make a comparison post for this forum. The first I stuck on was a 5.8cm f/1.4, and a quick chimp made me think it was just underexposing so I switched to manual. Instead, I see now that it has a small black band across the bottom.

As I continued to use it, it finally started seeing more than half the frame black(by this point I'd switched to a non-AI 50mm f/1.4)

I've played with several settings, including going into MLU mode, switching modes, doing a 2-button reset, and leaving the battery out for a few minutes. I've done standard exposures, MLU, and live view.

This is what it looks like

I know the answer is probably "Send it to Nikon", but I'm hoping that maybe someone has seen it before and might have some advice or an easy fix.

Thanks Shun.

I meant to mention that I had actually tried gently pushing it down(much as I have on old cameras when the bumper foam sticks the mirror) and it's stuck solid seemingly.

To add a bit to my previous post-with the mirror up I can gently push it DOWN and it will pop up to the position shown.

With the mirror resting, I can gently push it up but it stops where shown here.

Also, AF seems off. I noticed it when manually focusing that it flashes the arrows, and noticed that the photos I took were pretty badly out of focus vs. what I was seeing in the VF. With an AF lens, it will rack the lens in and out but also show the flashing arrows.

Also, this is a "low mileage" camera. I bought it used and use it a fair bit, but it's still a bit under 15K.

To add a bit to my previous post-with the mirror up I can gently push it DOWN and it will pop up to the position shown.

 

With the mirror resting, I can gently push it up but it stops where shown here.

 

Also, AF seems off. I noticed it when manually focusing that it flashes the arrows, and noticed that the photos I took were pretty badly out of focus vs. what I was seeing in the VF. With an AF lens, it will rack the lens in and out but also show the flashing arrows.

 

Also, this is a "low mileage" camera. I bought it used and use it a fair bit, but it's still a bit under 15K.

Don't know if you found this Link

Don't know if you found this Link

Good luck with it. So far, mine has been very reliable.

Thanks Sandy.

I couldn't find anything obvious, but used a fine bladed screwdriver to poke at stuff gently, and it popped up.

Think we're fixed!

Also, since I was initially trying to sell a car-anyone here interested in a 1974 Austin Marina? You will be the only person you know with one :)

Thanks Sandy.

 

I couldn't find anything obvious, but used a fine bladed screwdriver to poke at stuff gently, and it popped up.

 

Think we're fixed!

 

Also, since I was initially trying to sell a car-anyone here interested in a 1974 Austin Marina? You will be the only person you know with one :)

It is good to know you got it fixed.

As for car, you know, it would be better to dust it off before selling, it may be antic, but dust doesn't add value:)

Glad you got it fixed. Seeing the picture of your camera made me wonder though. I thought these days people rarely use the PC sync socket any more. Even with studio flashes they would use some source of radio trigger mounted on the hot shoe. However, I see that the PC sync socket cover is missing on yours. I wonder why?

It wasn't there when I bought the camera, and I do actually use it somewhat often.

I use old(probably 80s or early 90s) Quantum triggers, and have a couple of both transmitters and receivers. I only have one transmitter with a hotshoe on it, while the others are all PC.

I normally use the one with a hotshoe, but if I need to grab one and a PC only one is what comes to hand, I use it.

Also, since I was initially trying to sell a car-anyone here interested in a 1974 Austin Marina? You will be the only person you know with one :)

Wow. My parents had an Ital (listed by Wikipedia as a facelift of the Marina). I think they had a Maxi before that - they did not have a good track record. Wikipedia lists the Marina as "among the worst cars ever built", so good luck, although I'm sure there are collectors' clubs. Though 1974 was my birth year, I'm not quite tempted to commemorate it. :-) That said, over the weekend my wife found the Skoda battery had gone flat during lockdown, and after jump starting it there were still a lot of warning lights. I hope they'll go away when it's driven a bit (one way or another), but if I'm urgently in need of a new car I'll bear you in mind!

I guess the big question is how to stop it doing it again?

An issue like that makes me worry about using it at important times. OK, you've probably got a back-up body or 2 but never-the-less, you could still miss a shot during change over.

 

You will be the only person you know with one :)

There's a reason for that!

It wasn't there when I bought the camera, and I do actually use it somewhat often.

 

I use old(probably 80s or early 90s) Quantum triggers, and have a couple of both transmitters and receivers. I only have one transmitter with a hotshoe on it, while the others are all PC.

 

I normally use the one with a hotshoe, but if I need to grab one and a PC only one is what comes to hand, I use it.

I actually use the sync cord whenever I do remote flashes but I use a hot shoe to PC socket adapter because I am afraid I would lose the cap.

I guess the big question is how to stop it doing it again?

 

An issue like that makes me worry about using it at important times. OK, you've probably got a back-up body or 2 but never-the-less, you could still miss a shot during change over.

That is a concern of mine, and I will use it as much as I can over the next couple of weeks.

Having it go again is a small worry of mine. The Df is so small/light that it's often my only camera when I do take it, and I'd hate to have it act up when I'm traveling for example, as I often only take a single camera and typically two lenses(the 24-120 and a fast 35mm prime) so as not to burden those I'm traveling with.

Wow. My parents had an Ital (listed by Wikipedia as a facelift of the Marina). I think they had a Maxi before that - they did not have a good track record. Wikipedia lists the Marina as "among the worst cars ever built", so good luck, although I'm sure there are collectors' clubs. Though 1974 was my birth year, I'm not quite tempted to commemorate it. :-) That said, over the weekend my wife found the Skoda battery had gone flat during lockdown, and after jump starting it there were still a lot of warning lights. I hope they'll go away when it's driven a bit (one way or another), but if I'm urgently in need of a new car I'll bear you in mind!

The Marina is an...interesting...car.

British Leyland threw it together to have something new to offer without suspending a lot of development money. It's a stretched and enlarged unibody from a Morris Minor with some slightly updated suspension. It came with either a 1.3L A series engine or the same 1.8L B series engine as the MGB, and both paired to either a Triumph Dolomite gearbox or a BW35 automatic. In the US, we only got the 1.8L with a single carb. I can tell you that the BW35 makes acceleration befitting of the Maritime name of the car. I'd actually investigated doing a manual conversion and quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it(in particular sourcing a Dolomite transmission in the US is less than easy, especially one with the custom bell housing to bolt to the B series engine. Why they didn't use the tough as nails MGB gearbox, I won't know).

I actually don't want to get rid of it, as much fun as I'm making of it. I know that engine well, and it's certainly interesting, including the giant US spec bumpers. Still, though, life moves on, and a pending marriage/move/"You can only have two cars" order makes it necessary :)

Charles: Must be something about them. I remember happy trips to the seaside, and our dog throwing up in the back on the way home several times. (May be the car, may be she found something to eat that wasn't entirely food.) The smell reminded me of peanut butter, which is why I can't stand the stuff. Still, it got us where we needed to go, and I don't remember a "mum, turn the car off, there's smoke coming out of the ignition" situation as with some newer cars. (My own track record with cars includes a leaky fuel tank, an engine oil fire, and an engine which would die below 2000 revs and kill the power steering, so you had to brake for a corner, engage the clutch, and rev the engine simultaneously or it wouldn't turn; also it would overheat. That last one got traded in for some floor mats for a newer car...)

Ben: Yes, British Leyland had an interesting history, based on a time when the unions perhaps didn't entirely appreciate that the firm had to make some money. Before my time, so I over-simplify. I get being fond of stuff - I was very sad to let go of the Rover that was my first car (that was the leaky fuel tank), and I shed a tear over my wife's insistence that once of my early childhood computers had to go (there are... a lot of old bits of computer kit in my current study). Congratulations on both your upcoming nuptials and, I hope, it not being the camera kit that got it in the neck. :-)

Well, another bit of good news is that the Marina has been sold, or rather traded. My MG mechanic is taking it in trade for a whole pile of work he's doing on the MG(O/D install, cam, and maybe rings). All of that should really wake up the MG, and he'll do something fun/interesting with the Marina.

Andrew, she's mostly OK with the cameras. Fortunately at least they don't take up a ton of space(aside from lighting) and she at least enjoys the results :) . I don't know how long it will be before I can pull off a darkroom again, but hopefully I won't have to wait too long. Unfortunately, my 4x5 enlarger isn't exactly small. I may have to seriously get into E6 at home also since there aren't any labs in the St. Louis area that do it on-site.

The Mac collection(I have a bunch of going back to compacts from 1984, up through basically every variant on G3 and G4 era stuff and a lot in-between) might have to get thinned out seriously also...it might get condensed down to a few compacts, maybe one Quadra, and a few special projects I've built over the years.

and he'll do something fun/interesting with the Marina

He could crush it. That would be fun, but interesting? I doubt it. It’s a Marina for goodness sake. Many, many, congratulations on your sale. If you can sell that, you can sell anything!

The Mac collection(I have a bunch of going back to compacts from 1984, up through basically every variant on G3 and G4 era stuff and a lot in-between) might have to get thinned out seriously also...it might get condensed down to a few compacts, maybe one Quadra, and a few special projects I've built over the years.

Ah, brings back memories! My first sit down with a Mac was with OS6 on an SE/30 and IIcx at the HQ offices of HBO. Soon after I apprentice-supported a brace of IIci at a small ad graphics company, then when the "budget Macs" debuted in 1990 finally got my very own Classic compact with whopping 40MB hard drive. Damn, I miss the old 9" BW-screened compacts so much sometimes: talk about "character". Two years later I scored a demo Quadra 700 from Sam Goody (of all stores) that they forgot to remove the extra memory from (4 entire MB, which was a cool $500 savings for me in '92). Followed by the inevitable blue iMac and a never-ending stream of Powerbooks/MacBooks and Minis. I've always regretted not keeping at least the Quadra 700, considering it took years to pay off and then I sold it for scrap money to finance a Powerbook G4 Ti. At least I still have that one, and a grey "toilet seat" iBook I still use for ancient "experimental" CD-ROM games (Laurie Anderson's Puppet Motel being a fave).

I'll always have a soft spot for the period just before AOL and NetScape connected us all forevermore: if you used a Mac in the early '90s you personalized/hacked the interface more completely than a dorm room, and it was your own private little world of work and play with zero external intrusions (aside from occasional emails or print queue alerts if you were in an office setting). Most of that freewheeling fun aspect of MacOS was lost around the time of the iMac and OS9: the Jetsons iMac looked a lot more entertaining than it actually was (OS9 killed support for a load of personalization options and beloved add-on gimmicks like Flying Toasters). OSX has been a crashing bore for the past 20 years: high performance, modern, bulletproof compared to original MacOS "classic"- but zero charm or visceral appeal.

I did have a Mac Classic at one point (bought for a family member - still have the manual), but I'm not sure what happened to it. I'm on an elderly Retina MBP at the moment - vaguely wondering when it's going to give out, but also vaguely hoping that Apple will notice that everybody else offers a 4K SKU and that if they're going to position themselves as content creation machines they might want to be able to play the content without mangling it. Not that I do that much video. Mostly the rest of my machines run Linux these days (so for me, going to OS X with a Unixy underpinning was a significant bonus). I grew up on Acorn RISC systems (with a Spectrum in my formative years), which would stand me in good stead if there were still much in common between the old 32-bit (26-bit program counter) ARM2 and the latest 64-bit multi-core Cortex; sadly they lagged a bit in technology for the desktop, although they still had a number of nice UI features, often better implemented than alternatives - but since I stopped running Windows since I got a PC in the "you have an urgent system update/update failed, rolling back/you have an urgent system update" cycle I'm out of date with my ranting. I've still got my RiscPC, but can't say I use it much. I never liked x86, but to be fair Intel has tried to kill it pretty much since the 432 (and i960/860, and Itanium, although I blame the latter for ridding us of nicer alternatives like Alpha).

I was recently going through some old boxes, laughing that some of my colleagues would be too young to know what some of the cables were for... and then I found a cable and didn't know what it was for. I think it may have been an old Mac video cable. There's a chance I'll die under either a collapsing pile of elderly computer kit or under a lens collapse. At least it's been a few years since I had a 14-24 bounce off my head.

beloved add-on gimmicks like Flying Toasters

When did the sound of a Car Crash disappear when a Mac crashed?

When did the sound of a Car Crash disappear when a Mac crashed?

Sometime back in the old world ROM era(beige machines-the fluffy "colored" computers were new world ROM).

I think it went away early-ish in the PPC era along with the rest of the "sad Mac" chimes. The car crash was maybe on the Quadras?

Of course, the "Happy Mac" chime stuck around until just very recently, and I think you can re-enable it on current computers.

I used to loathe, hate and abhor the triumphant fanfare when Windows (finally) booted into the desktop. It just made me mentally retort "WTF are you so pleased with yourself about? A 'sorry it's taken so long' noise wouldn't come amiss."

Ah, the joys of technology, and the pointless anger it often provokes.