Remote+Bulb=R04

[alexbalix]

Hi, this is my first post on photo.net

 

I own a Nikon D50 with on old fashion manual 35mm 1.4 (My stock 28-80 broke and

im waiting for my new 18-200 VR.) I have started to do more and more night

photography since i moved to hawaii around 4 months ago. One of my favorite

things to do is set it on bulb, use my remote and let it go for 30 minutes, get

some good star trails. Well this was working all well and good until around 1

1/2 ago. I was ontop of this hill next to the Mauna Kea visitor center, in the

blistering cold wind setting up my tripod. So once it was set up i got out my

tripod, set the camera to bulb and attempted to shoot my shot. Well after all

the trouble of getting up there i find that it is giveing me a R04 error. It

only happends with bulb with remote. Bulb works fine and the remote works fine,

just not togeather.

 

Whats going on and what should i do?

 

Im going back up there tonight, but i guesse i can live with 30 seccond

exposures. ..

[todd peach seattle, washi]

Standard disclaimer: I don't have any miles on a D50.

 

Isn't 'R04' just a way of telling you how much remains in the buffer? I don't think it's an error, per se.

 

Interpretng what you're saying, I think the camera is just 'locked' and won't shoot for any number of reasons, not having to do with the R04.

 

Are you in an AF mode? Is the camera trying to find an 'AF solution' and can't find anything in the sky to 'focus' on? (or a variation on this, you're standing right in front of the lens trying to set this up, and the camera can't focus on your thigh 6" in front of the lens).

 

Battery nice and strong? Hard for us mainlanders to imagine Hawaii being truly 'blistering cold', but if it is where you're at, a cold battery can put out low voltage and cause all sorts of odd behaviors.

 

Is there a battery in the remote? Is it in good shape?

[alexbalix]

Thank you for such a quick answer. Let me privide some of my own to your questions.

 

The R04 error happends only when i press the shutter button and only when the camera is set for Bulb and remote operation. The area does show how many shots are left normaly.

 

There is no Auto focus, the camera is set on full manual everywhere. If there would be a problem with focus it would also show up doing normal exposures at night, it does not. I was not infront of the camera.

 

Im sitting in my room in well... room temprature with a FULL battery and its still giveing my the R04 with bulb and remote on, 1 1/2 weeks after the first acurance.

 

The Remote does have a batery, it works fine on all other shots. The remote does not communicate to the camera untill i press it. It uses IR

[mawz]

R04 is not an error, it's the number of shots until the buffer is full. What's happening is the

bulb is engaging the meter but not tripping the shutter in bulb mode, the Camera displays

remaining buffer when the shutter is depressed part way.

[andrewbennett]

Alex,

My guess would be that your IR remote is not capable of doing bulb exposures. IR remotes can open the shutter, but without a locking feature have no way of telling the camera when to close the shutter. Try using one of the 10-pin cables (MC-30 or MC-36). I could be mistaken though, so someone correct me if I am. Hope that helps.

 

Andrew

[todd_mansfield2]

I also thought <it>r04</it> was an error, and found this page searching accordingly. As the other posters indicate, this is just normal behavior (I just hadn't noticed it before.) To give a bit more insight, here's what my D50 displays with different image quality settings...

<table>

<tr><td>Raw+basic</td><td>r04</td></tr>

<tr><td>Raw</td><td>r04</td></tr>

<tr><td>JPEG Fine</td><td>r19</td></tr>

<tr><td>JPEG Normal</td><td>r27</td></tr>

<tr><td>JPEG Basic</td><td>r49</td></tr>

</table>

[charlie_chisholm]

<p>I have the same problem on the D50. Every time I depress the shutter release, I get the r04 message. I have room for about 250 more pics on the card. I am set for Raw+basic as in the list above, but if this is not an error, How do I get past it to take more pictures?</p>

[todd_mansfield1]

<p>@ Charlie,<br>

The r04 message doesn't indicate how much room is on your flash card. It indicates how much "buffer capacity" is available for shots taken faster than can be written to the flash card. The card is large but takes some time to write to. The camera's buffer capacity is fast but won't hold as much. This type of trade-off happens a lot with computers.</p>

<p>Interpret the r04 message as "I have room for 4 shots if you shoot them faster than I can write them to the card."</p>

<p>So its not an error at all, though Nikon made it look like an error message. It's just one of those human interface things. I don't want to come across as too critical because Nikon really understand the importance of the human interface and they do it well for most of the important stuff.</p>

[t_k10]

<p>I have recently started having this problem with my Nikon D50, but it seems to have nothing to do with what was discussed previously. I used the camera a bit in January and a few more times in February, when one day I turned it on to find the "r04" message located where it displays the number of shots left. Up until this point the camera worked flawlessly, I never had any problems with it whatsoever. I do have an SD card in it, but that would mean I have no buffer capacity because it doesn't let me take any photos. My friend did manage to get two pictures out of it at one point but it's been doing the "r04" message constantly since then. Is there a solution to this? </p>