randy_lewis Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 My D-80 seems to have developed a new problem in that the shutter button doesn'talways release the shutter. Nothing in the manual addresses this, so I assumesomething is wrong with the camera. FWIW, my wonderful wife knocked my D-80, complete with 18-200 lens, off thecounter the other day. I took a few test shots then and it appeared to beworking properly. So I did not kill my wife ;-) Is there anything I am overlooking here in the settings, or should I send to toNikon for repairs? Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill_keane2 Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 Is it possible you have activated another type of shutter release (self-timer) or that you have set the camera to no fire unless focus is achieved? I would reset the camera, and go from there. If it still has trouble, well then it would seem there's an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linker Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 You might want to set the lens to manual focus and try again. Maybe the lens is not focusing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randy_lewis Posted June 3, 2007 Author Share Posted June 3, 2007 I have reset the camera and played around with it a little more. The issue is definitely focus. It sometimes doesn't even try to focus. It's weird. I aimed at a house several hundred yards away and tried to take a picture at various focal lengths. At 18MM, it wouldn't even try. At the next two lengths, it focused and shot fine. Somewhere around 30MM, again, no focus and no shutter release. I took about a dozen or so pictures from 18MM to 200MM, and it wouldn't focus at 18, 30. It did fine at every other length. Weirdness abounds. Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gdw Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 Randy, when you are testing, be sure that you are focusing with the center sensor. If the D80 is like the D200 some of the sensors focus on vertical lines and some on horizontal lines. The center sensor is the only one that will focus on either. My guess is that you have it set on FOCUS PRIORITY and if you are using a sensor that focuses on verticals and the sensor you are using only see horizontal lines, or vice versa, therefore it will not focus and if it is set on focus priority rather then release priority, the shutter will not fire. This is assuming that the D80 works pretty much like the D200. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marypar4 Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 Try a different lens on camera to see if its the lens or camera. My guess is the lens got bumped out of whack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_luongo1 Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 Try the same lens on a different body to eliminate the lens as a source of the problem. To figure out if the shutter release is working, switch the camera to manual focus. Then no matter what, the shutter is supposed to firewhen you press the release. At the wide end of the range (the 18-30mm settings you describe) it's possible that the lens is focusing but just isn't moving much. Do you see an autofocus confirmation dot in the corner or are you trying to see the image "snap" into focus? With wide angle lenses, it can be hard to see the lens go into focus. Gary has a good point about making sure your horizontal and vertical sensors are focusing on appropriate lines. The simplest way to make sure you have a detectable target is to draw a large cross on a piece of paper. Also, the autofocus sensors don't necessarily align with the display in the viewfinder. Try positioning the sensors slightly above/below and left/right of the focus target to see if that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allan_crookes Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 I am experiencing similar problems. It seems to happen whenever I change something physically eg - lens, battery. The camera seems to reset itself (maybe it is supposed to) in the settings, especially focus area. I try to auto focus and all sorts of strange things will happen. To cut a long story short, I have to go through the menus and re-choose the AF area. I normally have it on Single Area but it changes to other settings by itself and in the viewfinder, I see multiple focus areas, which did annoy the snot out of me for a while, as quite often it might focus on something other than what I was intending to shoot. It would be at this point I noticed it had changed. At higher magninfication and with closer objects, it manifested itself in a very similar way to what you described.The answer in my particular case... When changing either a battery or the lens,,, make sure your settings are where you want them. Check first, shoot later... By the way, I have the extra battery grip MB-D80 and have two batteries in it. It uses one battery at a time and automatically switches over to the other when either the battery goes flat or you take it out, so just why it seems to change settings is a bit of a mystery to me. Other than that, it performs flawlessly so I live with it now... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randy_lewis Posted June 4, 2007 Author Share Posted June 4, 2007 The shutter releases fine in manual focus mode. I did test my camera using my 60MM macro lens. The shutter releases every time if the picture is in focus or not. The problem seems to be more at the wide end and only when the camera is in aperture priority mode. The AF doesn't indicate that it's in focus even though what I see through the lens looks perfectly fine. Increasing the focal length just a tad seems to correct the problem, but I should be able to shoot at any focal length I chose. Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john schroeder Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 The lens has an issue. I would take it back to the store where you bought it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randy_lewis Posted June 5, 2007 Author Share Posted June 5, 2007 I went ahead and sent it to Nikon. I've owned it for over two months, so returning it to the retailer wouldn't work. Hopefully they'll fix it at no charge. But I did drop it, so I'll pay if I must. I just hope they return it in time for my vacation at the end of the month. Louey Louey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted June 5, 2007 Share Posted June 5, 2007 Hopefully you sent both the D80 and the 18-200mm DX zoom back to Nikon, especially since both of them were dropped at the same time. This could well be a problem or damage to the lens and/or the body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric_arnold Posted June 5, 2007 Share Posted June 5, 2007 hmm, this problem seems to have been correctly diagnosed. i'd just like to add that a similar thing happened to me, when i was using my sb-600 flash w/ d80. the camera, which has been otherwise reliable in seven months of moderate use) wouldn't focus. then i took the flash off and it worked ok. i changed the flash batteries but the same thing happened. it turned out the hotshoe connector was dusty or something, i blew on both the camera and flash hotshoe and then they both worked after that. moral of the story is always check for a simple explanation before developing worst-case scenarios. moral of randy's story is dont drop your lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randy_lewis Posted June 19, 2007 Author Share Posted June 19, 2007 Good news. I received a confirmation from Nikon yesterday saying they could cover the repair under the warranty. :D They didn't say when the repair would be completed, but at least it's covered! Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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