Nikon D70 CF problems

<p>It is a long story but when my brother gave me this D70,<br>

we went out for a day to practice and take shots, he was giving me a tutorial.</p>

<p>We got back and went to put the images up on his PC... I think via the usb cable to camera.<br>

It was unplugged as they did not show up or something, to try the cf reader...<br>

Basically the card was corrupted I think... it wouldn't work in the camera...</p>

<p>He reformatted it reluctantly.... in camera..</p>

<p>It still didn't work.. I think at this point the shutter wouldn't go when pressing the trigger,<br>

though maybe it wasn't in focus and it was on auto maybe.. I was shooting on full manual..<br>

but when it didn't work he may have switched to auto ... will auto even shoot in manual focus mode?<br>

I know now I can only take the shot if the camera determines it is in focus... in auto.</p>

<p>Anyway... we tried another CF card... same still.. and a CHA error...<br>

one of these cards happened to have been formatted in his new D300 (i think it is)...<br>

this isn't good either... anyway... so i went home to solve this wad of errors with research.. <br>

and some i.t. knowledge.<br>

<br />So i formatted via xp, wiped free-space of the cards and formatted in camera a few times...<br>

I think it worked for a bit... but anyway... when it did work.. it was fine for a while.</p>

<p>Slowly I would have a random card error... anyway... basically I get into the habit of switching off, reinserting the card firmly, switching on... and with the same technique it always comes good out of cha or 'for' and I can keep shooting.</p>

<p>But anyway so to finally test this properly I bought a extreme3 8gb, it is fast and nice...<br>

but it happened to get a card error right when the battery died... when i put the new battery in...<br>

all 1400 images from my overseas trip i was currently on were vanished... they were present in that the number of shots left ghosted them.. but not viewable.</p>

<p>After I got home I found them put in an offset folder... which was easy to get them off.</p>

<p><a href="http://download.cnet.com/PC-Inspector-Smart-Recovery/3000-2242_4-10066144.html">http://download.cnet.com/PC-Inspector-Smart-Recovery/3000-2242_4-10066144.html</a></p>

<p>Has been priceless to me and it is literally priceless... best recovery program for digital photography.</p>

<p>Sometimes images vanish... but i can grab them off... even though i didn't delete them.. convar will pick them up. (they did this only once, usually they are there or one out of many is corrupt).</p>

<p>Anyway sometimes one image will have a 'faulty' header, and with jpgs this kills the image... all data must be present for a jpg.. though oddly I do get half images... and mixed up corrupted files...</p>

<p>But nothing like the next time I used the 8gb... ... it crapped out on a trip when I got back around local heritage area... and all photos were fine... but some... were just a mess... there were folders with jibberish files and tags... and false files sizes.. the folders in the jpg name of the image that were corrupt.</p>

<p>Anyway... so all was well after that... cha would occur sometimes... but I can cope...</p>

<p>but again my 8gb has done the vanishing trick... I havn't looked but it looks like they will be in a folder offset like last time...</p>

<p>SO people have written online CHA may be linked to temperature... colder times making it happen more...<br>

also that the battery terminals may need a clean insinuating the card error is a power fluctuation or flaw... and other linking on from this idea have sent their camera to Nikon where-by the shutter mechanism was replaced and the CHA card error ceased. So the shutter may have been frictive and drained power or something.</p>

<p>Has anyone had any experience solving their Nikon card errors and how?</p>

<p>CHA is a 'miscellaneous card error'. For is a need to be formatted... and more recently I ad dashes for an error... would Nikon be so kind to help me out do you think?</p>

<p>Also my 18-55vr developed a hideous blur that is nauseating away from the middle of the shot... close up macro style is fine as it isn't so obvious but anything landscape is so ... so noticeable the centre can be super-sharp but it just loses focus out form the centre even on a flat plane.</p>

<p>This I think is from the air pressure flying to Kuala Lumpur or Kuching, or the humidity.<br>

It was a bummer... I usually compose my shot so an object is in focus then set it off to the side so it is nicely framed... like a statue in the distance then set off from a temple in the centre. meaning... the centre is unfocused... but the statue has this hideous vignetted blur, effectively making the whole shot ruined.</p>

<p>Someone said it looks like a crooked glass element... the VR having 11 this is probably a simple thing to occur over such an array. But I need to find this warranty card :<</p>

<p>Anyway... let me know your thoughts or if I can help with your problems... unfortunately I have a heap of experience troubleshooting on this now.</p>

<p>I had a CHA error that would appear rather randomly on my D70. The battery would drain, and I thought the batteries themselves were the problem, I replaced them and still got the error. I tried cleaning the contacts myself, it didn't help. I took it to a local repair shop, they nodded and said it was a known electrical problem. They sent it to Nikon for the repair. It's worked flawlessly since then. However, it did cost me about somewhere in the neighborhood of $200-250. A few years ago that was on the edge of not being worth it, but now it's really probably not worth it to fix it for that cost.<br>

Unfortunately I can't help you with your lens problem, sorry!<br>

Good luck!</p>

<p>Thank you for your input and clarification, for now it is managable.. but if I can't trust my camera,<br>

it severely cripples my confidence in taking nice shots.</p>

<p>My batteries only really drain when I start using flash, they don't last long doing it, but sometimes they do, though I am often shooting at 1/18 full power.</p>

<p>s2</p>

<p>Sad day for your D70. Take a penlight or LED lamp and shine it down into the CF compartment without a card in there. Sometimes if one of those pins gets bent a little it can totally screw up the camera. I had this happen on my old D70 and fixed it by GENTLY using a tweezers or needle nose pliers to bend it back in place. However the D70 was also cursed with the "BGLOD" syndrome or "Blinking Green Light of Death". Not sure if this is your problem but Nikon fixed mine for free a few months out of warranty. If you can't fix the D70 I'd recommend a used D200 to replaced it. THey're sort of cheap now and MUCH better Build quality than the D70/80/90 series. And you can use those CF cards and batteries.</p>

<p>You mentioned XP as your computer's OS. DO NOT under any circumstances let Windows show your pictures using "Windows Picture and FAX Viewer". This piece of **** software rewrites back to the file when you simply want to rotate an image. It takes forever to do that with large camera files and it's easy to get fed up waiting and pull the card before writing is complete - with disastrous consequences.</p>

<p>I'm not saying that Picture and Fax Viewer is the cause of your problems, but using it certainly won't help. The freeware Irfanview viewer is far better and won't corrupt your files simply turning them round!</p>

<p>Do you have the little D70 <strong>Instruction Manual</strong>?</p>

<p>I'll wager that you are trying to use a 8 Gb CF card is the problem. The D70s handles up to 2 Gb cards OK, and the D70 is older -- so it may not understand how to format a 8 Gb card, resulting in your D70 having problems....</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I am grateful for your responses, especially so quickly and so informative.</p>

<p>I will try be more concise that my opening post:</p>

<p>I never connect my D70 to my pc, especially after my initial experience. Though I have formatted using XP, which is a big nono, but I was trying to resurrect two cards otherwise useless and it helped.<br /> I Use only a card reader and dump the photos off the card any time I plug it into the reader,<br /> putting the card back in my camera for a format.</p>

<p>I started with the 512mb and 1gb Sandisk original cards my brother had made useless to his purposes,<br /> one because of it being unplugged that first time whilst being accessed maybe, the second was<br /> when we were checking it if was the card and the camera managed to corrupt that card,<br /> or unfortunately it had not been formatted since it was in a D300.<br /> 1.<br />The 8gb card was me finally trying a fresh card, only formatted in my D70.<br /> It has been fine, but it is the only one that does this vanishing trick into a created subfolder...<br />it makes no more corrupt files on occasion than either of the smaller cards in comparison to how many I can store on it.<br /> 2.<br />I agree with rotating images in xp, I hate it... it reprocesses my image and makes the file size smaller.<br /> It is stupid... sometimes I get the feeling even ACDsee by viewing my images they are being<br /> reprocessed and I don't like that much, I want my original files form of and from the D70 preserved as they were created.<br /> Though I guess if I saved these creations of the D70 onto a CD, a USB and a HDD,<br /> in 80 years if I drew them off from each medium, they would all be vastly different at a 'molecular level' (analogy for digital means).<br /> I read on my usb box for once and it said Data Retention: 10 Years.. it makes you feel,<br /> if it wasn't likely you would be making vast copies or moving this file to other mediums over that time,<br /> a usb of images could be out lasted by a photo album, and probably is less secure in terms of what calamities it can weather than a photo album, which would simply gain character from the experiences,<br /> which would destroy data on CD or electrical charge memory.. <br /> Anyway... <br /> 3.<br />Irfanview is something I stand-by as my main photography tool.. Paint.net is the thing I would use for editing, if any. Do you have the plugin pack for irfan? :) if you add paint.dll you can do a few lil things,<br /> like cloning an area to cover sensor spots. With Irfanview I actually feel I am viewing my original image.<br /> <br />4.<br />I did have a peek at the pins and my new battery arises the same errors, so I havn't cleaned the contacts of the original.<br /> But I havn't had a good look at them with a light.</p>

<p>5.<br /> No blinking green light of death for me... I bet it is the same electrical fault, which has developed to the point of hazardous to Nikon insurance, where-by if left it could become dangerous.</p>

<p>I have looked after this D70 so far, getting a sensor clean done.. I was hoping he'd clean the mirror too,<br /> my 18-55VR was put on right after the clean to maintain a dust free result.</p>

<p>Q: Has anyone experience pulling apart lenses? ESP. 70-300mm G, it got a slight knock in the camera bag and jammed up a little... when I got the sensor clean.. he asked if he may look at it for a quote.<br /> Consequently the small bumps at the end and stiffness of focus has become so much worse,<br /> there is a lil bulge under the zoom grip at the end. I want to undo it and see if I can glue something,<br /> or just see what it is? Are there heaps of tiny clips that are hard to get back in or something?<br /> The glass is perfect I was so bummed over this and the CF errors has made the experience a bumpy one..<br /> Not to mention my 18-55VR getting the vignette of death-blur... lucky I had a spare I grabbed off ebay for around 100$ brand new, the first was a present, or i'd be royally bummed.<br /> Just to say.. I have taken care of it well I think, but this card error is resilient.<br /> When I got my new 8gb... I sat down... Updated the firmware to 2.0 A and B, put it in.. fresh,<br /> formatted it and added my comment of authenticity finally as I felt I could start composing nice shots,<br /> move on from practice mode. But alas... the error popped up, it took a while, the longest gap,<br />but it did. Now it is reoccurant. <br /><br />If you have read thus far I have another query other than pulling apart a nikkor zoom,<br />has anyone done the 2.0 firmware update to their D70...</p>

<p>I noticed the oddest thing after I did....</p>

<p>My 18-55VR.. was silent when put of after the clean.. it was inaudible... it really was so so quiet.<br /> This may be why I have noticed what happened after the firmware update.. whether it is the new focusing system being incompatible to the mechanisms of the camera...<br /> there is this distant hiss, or a whispering noise of tsss tsss when I focus on anything now,<br /> it is still a super quiet lens...but I thought maybe.. when cleaning the lens I pressed down too hard..<br /> but then I realised I had done the firmware update... I swapped on the spare copy of the 18-55Vr,<br /> just to test to see if it was going to have the original silence as the first copy, but it had the exact same focusing noise.</p>

<p>Has anyone experienced this?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>"The 8gb card was me finally trying a fresh card, only formatted in my D70.<br /> It has been fine, but it is the only one that does this vanishing trick into a created subfolder...<br />it makes no more corrupt files on occasion than either of the smaller cards in comparison to how many I can store on it."</p>

<p>If you do mind the "vanishing trick," which is sort of like you do not really need all the images you take, then the 8 Gb CF card seems to be OK for you. If you get a couple of 1 Gb CF cards, you may have part of your problem solved....</p>

<p>Taking a zoom lens apart makes a neat paperweight (usually) when you are done with your project. You may just find a good deal on the Internet for another 70-300mm G Nikkor zoom lens in the $55 to $90 range.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>they vanish from displaying on camera... I plug the card into a card reader... and find them in a folder on the card that has been created away from the usual default folder...</p>

<p>No biggy.. also... I can keep shooting it just saves in a different area.</p>

<p>Or if they do get lost I use Pc inspector to retrieve them 98% success rate for me.</p>

<p>Also the technician took it apart... I tried to get the service manual for it offline but you must pay to get it, I do have an indepth diagram of it though.. and no I don't want to spend more money.</p>

<p>Or I would have taken up his offer to fix it. For 80$ you can find decent point and shoots... this would be a better replacement for an old lens. I like having one lens.. if anything I am looking at the tamron 18-270mm because I can't afford the 18-200VR.</p>

<p>Funnily enough these sandisk cards the 512mb and 1gb are effectively the most costly...it is like 20 - 30 dollars for a 1gb.... >_<.... I can find 4gb or even an 8gb for cheaper if I look hard enough.</p>

<p>Sammy, let's clear one thing up. All digital cameras create a folder structure automatically and as soon as a fresh card is plugged into the camera. There's a top-level folder called "DCIM" that's common to all makes and models of camera, and within that folder the camera creates one or more subfolders with names like "100ND700", which is where the actual pictures are stored. You cannot direct the camera to use anything other than this file/folder structure, although you can tell the camera to switch between folders.</p>

<p>That the camera creates a subfolder of its own naming for storing the picture files is absolutely normal.</p>

<p>BTW, thanks for suggesting the plugin DLL for Irfanview, I downloaded the official plugin pack, but didn't realise there was an extension DLL available. </p>

<p>You may try shopping at one of Photo Net's sponsor stores:</p>

<p>http://www.keh.com/Camera/format-Digital/system-Miscellaneous-Digital/category-Memory-Cards?s=1&bcode=DG&ccode=90&cc=79778&r=WG&f</p>

<p>Prices on 1 Gb CF cards are a lot lower than in your area....</p>

 

<p>buh can you just assume i'm not a moron...<br />http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/xheartscreamsx/2011-09-07_230016.jpg<br /> when I get a card error... the images vanish...<br /> as the new folder they a shifted to some how..is not the default root folder...<br /> so it says 'no image data' or what ever it says...<br /> but if I plug it into the card reader... it shows up when exploring the folder...<br /> Also they are visible only by the 'shots left' counter reading the same as before they vanished form card err.</p>

<p>Yes all the plugins are Dll, you put them in the plugin folder, either unzipping the pack and taking the ones out you want for your plugin folder in irfan or run the .exe and it will install them all there...<br /> paint.dll is utilized view the Edit menu, as 'show paint dialog' or ... f12 once in the plugin folder.</p>

<p>wow 6$ .. >_<.. they are more expensive than sd in Australia even on ebay.<br /> hey, only 60$ shipping.. bargain fed-ex :D</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Odd.. I used PC inspector smart recovery...<br /> <a href="http://www.pcinspector.de/smartrecovery/info.htm?language=1">http://www.pcinspector.de/smartrecovery/info.htm?language=1</a></p>

<p>Because : http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/xheartscreamsx/2011-09-07_234617.jpg</p>

<p>Unlike previously ... the DCII folder was not accessible ...<br /> I did the recover of JPG format...and they all came back... accept 1 was corrupt and had half the image... which is fine..I was at a gig and it was a bad blurry shot anyway.<br /> But then I thought 'hey wasn't I shooting in Raw/Nef for a while... so I did a Nikon Nef scan... and then all the files came up... again... but in NEF format... and I definitely didn't have it set to 'Nef + basic Jpg'.. it was in raw... hmmm Now i have two sets of files... same image... different sizes... > - < my camera is a weirdo<br>

~ Edit:</p>

<p>Ok so... more photos have come up under NEF... but these extra ones.. amongst the others at the same time... only have a thumbnail.. (using irfan view thumbs) but when opened they are 'not a valid RAW file'...<br>

but they didn't get recovered when I did the Scan in JPG format... hm... but there is only about 5 of these ... 5 extra NEF shots, atop the same copies of the others.</p>

<p>I am using a SD to CF adapter now, see if this solves the file save errors when the battery falters I think is cause.<br>

I spoke to Nikon service centre when getting my lens sorted out... and he said it would be the main board... as the camera is old... but this only started happening when we unplugged the camera directly from an XP pc... </p>

<p>Anyway... hopefully using a TF card in a SD adapter in a CF adapter changes the way the camera charge interacts with the image data when it is being saved or half saved.</p>