Focus illumination lamp not functioning

[richard_dulkin]

<p>I have a Nikon D-700. It is slow to focus. The focus assist lamp seems to be off. I use the camera for studio work with off camera, non-Nikon strobes. Models tell me that the illumination light doesn't come on like my other D-700. I shoot with ISO 100 @ 200 sec. @ f/11 usually. Have I turned off this light some how? If not, can I replace the bulb, or must it be sent to the Nikon repair station?</p>

[Matt Laur]

Which AF mode are you in?

[Two23]

<p>Dive into the menu and see if it's checked as "on."</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

[jim_momary]

<p>Menu command a9 sets the illuminator, check to see it is on.</p>

<p>The manual also indicates :</p>

<p>It only works with single servo autofocus. AF-S.</p>

<p align="LEFT">Auto-area AF is chosen for AF-area mode or single-point or dynamic-area AF is chosen and the center focus point is selected.</p>

<p align="LEFT">The AF-assist illuminator can be used with lenses with focal lengths of 24 – 200 mm. AF-assist illumination is not available with AF-S VR 200mm f/2 G ED or AF-S VR 200 - 400 f/4 G ED.</p>

<p align="LEFT"> </p>

<p align="LEFT">Hope that helps.</p>

<p align="LEFT"> </p>

<p align="LEFT">Jim</p>

[mike_halliwell]

<p>Not meaning to be funny, but why do you need it? Surely the ambient light in the studio is bright enough for successful AF?....or are you doing something a little unusual with very low ambient levels or using a lens with a 'dark' wide-open aperture...say f4 rather than f2 etc? The D700 has a pretty good AF module.<br /> <br /> Just curious but what lens are you using?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>can I replace the bulb, or must it be sent to the Nikon repair station?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm wracking my brains, but are there ANY bits of a Nikon DSLR that they actually want you to fix yourself, even if they'll sell you the parts? It's rhetorical and they won't!</p>

<p>But hopefully it's just a menu mix-up or trying to use it on AFC.</p>

<p> </p>

[raczoliver]

<p>Check custom function a9. You may have turned it off by accident. By the way, I must say that for me at least, the AF assist light is close to the top on the list of useless camera functions. Probably the first thing I do when I get a new camera is turn it off, so it doesn't bother the people I photograph.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>I had the same thing happen on my D700. Turned the AF assist light on to focus in near darkness and one minute it was working, the next - zilch. Started cursing Nikon's use of a stupid filament bulb (like LEDs have never been invented?) and poked the lens of the lamp a bit to see how easy it would be to replace it. Tried it again a few seconds later and the AF light sprang back to life.</p>

<p>I still don't know what the problem was. So my only advice would be to give the lamp lens a bit of a tap and see if that cures it. Or maybe try a full two button reset of the camera.</p>

<p>FWIW, the bulb in the AF lamp looks like a standard sub-miniature 6v job; such as are used by railway modellers in the headlamps of 00 gauge locos. How you get in to replace it is another matter, but it looks as if the lens/reflector assembly <em>might</em> just be a friction fit in the camera body. Removed with a small rubber sucker on the lens perhaps?</p>

[Edwin Barkdoll]

<p>I second Jim's suggestion.</p>

<p>I had what may be a similar experience with a D610: AF-S mode was selected but the focus point was not in the center. Drove me crazy 'til I figured that one out.</p>

[chip_chipowski]

<p>I had a similar problem with my AF-lamp recently. In my case, I was set to AF-C and the lamp worked perfectly once I moved back to AF-S.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>At the risk of a completely unrelated point... why are you shooting a D700 at ISO 100? (That's LO1 on a D700, I believe - native ISO is 200.) Which is fine for JPEGs, but in raw it's throwing away a stop of shadow detail by digital scaling the result. Just thought I'd ask in case you thought ISO 100 was maximum quality.</p>

[dan_ryder]

<p>I had the same thing happen on my D700. Turned the AF assist light on to focus in near darkness and one minute it was working, the next - zilch. Started cursing Nikon's use of a stupid filament bulb (like LEDs have never been invented?) and poked the lens of the lamp a bit to see how easy it would be to replace it. Tried it again a few seconds later and the AF light sprang back to life.</p>

<p>I still don't know what the problem was. So my only advice would be to give the lamp lens a bit of a tap and see if that cures it. Or maybe try a full two button reset of the camera.</p>

<p>FWIW, the bulb in the AF lamp looks like a standard sub-miniature 6v job; such as are used by railway modellers in the headlamps of 00 gauge locos. How you get in to replace it is another matter, but it looks as if the lens/reflector assembly <em>might</em> just be a friction fit in the camera body. Removed with a small rubber sucker on the lens perhaps?</p>

Just wanted to point out this worked for me.

 

D610, in AF-S, center point, A9 setting ON, could NOT get the light to turn on. It's been bugging me about a year and stumbled on this post.

Pushed in on the bulb housing (not even that hard) and it comes on great now.

 

I have an SB-800 so I prefer to use that anyway but sometimes I leave it at home...

[BeBu Lamar]

I am glad my camera doesn't have that light.

[BeBu Lamar]

After posting the above post I realized for some reasons Nikon doesn't put the AF light on cameras that don't have built in flash. So does it have anything to do with the built in flash not being used?

[john_tran14]

some reasons Nikon doesn't put the AF light on cameras that don't have built in flash

 

With the cameras that I know, the red assist light is often not enough to assist and the camera would use the flash to assist focusing.

[BeBu Lamar]

With the cameras that I know, the red assist light is often not enough to assist and the camera would use the flash to assist focusing.

The camera that has built in flash like the D700 etc.. actually has white assist light. It's the flash that emit red assist light.

[Nick D.]

Guys, it is 5 years old question.

[mike_halliwell]

... and they say people never learn from History.

 

Amazing......;)

[rodeo_joe1]

Thread resurrected perfectly legitimately on Tuesday 31/12/'19.

And co-incidentally I had an unexplained AF illuminator failure just recently.

 

I volunteered to set up and man a 'photo booth' for a friend's daughter's 21st Birthday. All was going well until the DJ decided to plunge the room into near total darkness, when I discovered the AF lamp on my D7200 wasn't working. Checked menu item a9 - it was ON. Checked lens seating - OK. Changed lens. Pressed and tapped on the AF lamp lens... still no light. Improvised using the torch (flashlight) function on my phone and carried on regardless.

 

Then, later in the evening I unscrewed the camera from the tripod and slid a speedlight into the hotshoe to do the walkie-snap thing around the hall. Darn me if the camera's AF illuminator didn't spring to life and continue to work!

 

I've been attempting to replicate or explain the mysterious temporary AF light failure for the last hour with no success.

 

All I've come up with is an undocumented 'feature' of Nikon DSLRs. Namely: That pressing the lens detachment button disables focus and hence the AF lamp. AE works with the button pressed, but the lens refuses to focus. So if you want a quick'n'dirty focus lock - reach for the lens release. Seems to work with both screwdriver and BIM lenses.

 

The AF illuminator is definitely worth checking before you tackle a job that might need it! I had everything else from gaffer tape to spare speedlights, triggers and lighting stands. Didn't even occur to me to check the bl**dy AF lamp on the camera.

Edited January 2, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

[richard_driscoll]

Thread resurrected perfectly legitimately on Tuesday 31/12/'19.

And co-incidentally I had an unexplained AF illuminator failure just recently.

 

I volunteered to set up and man a 'photo booth' for a friend's daughter's 21st Birthday. All was going well until the DJ decided to plunge the room into near total darkness, when I discovered the AF lamp on my D7200 wasn't working. Checked menu item a9 - it was ON. Checked lens seating - OK. Changed lens. Pressed and tapped on the AF lamp lens... still no light. Improvised using the torch (flashlight) function on my phone and carried on regardless.

 

Then, later in the evening I unscrewed the camera from the tripod and slid a speedlight into the hotshoe to do the walkie-snap thing around the hall. Darn me if the camera's AF illuminator didn't spring to life and continue to work!

 

I've been attempting to replicate or explain the mysterious temporary AF light failure for the last hour with no success.

 

All I've come up with is an undocumented 'feature' of Nikon DSLRs. Namely: That pressing the lens detachment button disables focus and hence the AF lamp. AE works with the button pressed, but the lens refuses to focus. So if you want a quick'n'dirty focus lock - reach for the lens release. Seems to work with both screwdriver and BIM lenses.

 

The AF illuminator is definitely worth checking before you tackle a job that might need it! I had everything else from gaffer tape to spare speedlights, triggers and lighting stands. Didn't even occur to me to check the bl**dy AF lamp on the camera.

Just tried on my D7200. Turned setting a9 on since I usually have it off. No focus lamp!! Turned camera off and on - no joy. Set all 'a' options to their defaults - no joy. Took lens off and replaced - no joy. Lamp is OK since it blinks with self timer. Oh well - two button reset - now it works!

 

However if the focus mode is set to AFS and single focus point the lamp won't work unless the selected point is the centre one and I guess that is what the reset did. Surely the centre 9 (say) should be illuminated OK to work. What's more if you set AFS and auto area it works too!

 

Perhaps the trouble you had? - easy to have the focus point set one off from centre and not notice. Must look in the book.

BTW the D7200 is so darned sensitive, things have to get pretty dim before it turns on anyway.

[rodeo_joe1]

However if the focus mode is set to AFS and single focus point the lamp won't work unless the selected point is the centre one

That may well have been the issue. I must check it. I did have the AF point offset when the camera was tripod mounted - it was useless positioning the AF point squarely between the heads of two portrait sitters side-by-side.

 

If that's the case, then Nikon's programmers need a huge kick up the backside for their plain stupidity. Must check if the same happens with the D800, and must gaffer tape a keyring light to the camera if I ever do a similar gig.

[mike_halliwell]

I know the D7200 doesn't have the 10pin socket, but I've always wanted to utilise it to build a simple AF assist light that effectively works the same way as the in-body AF assist light but in AFC aswell and switches OFF instantly (so LED rather than slow fade incandescent) the shutter is tripped.

 

Maybe switched ON by BBF and OFF by the SB

[rodeo_joe1]

If you want to do this with a camera that has the 10 pin socket Mike, it should be doable. The 10 pinner has an outlet for a permanently on voltage (straight from the camera battery?) and pins that operate AF and shutter. I posted a picture of the pinout here.

 

A simple transistor switch to turn the LED on with the AF pin should do the trick.

 

The tricky bit is finding a plug or cable for the 10 pin socket that has all the pins, and that doesn't cost 40 times what it's worth.

 

Alternatively, the base connector for an external battery pack has a lot more contacts that reflect a whole range of the camera's functions, but I have no information on those contacts I'm afraid.

 

Right. A simple CCT consisting of a CMOS quad Exclusive Or gate package just popped into my head, and could be operated with a cheap 10 pin remote cable. I'll scribble it out and post a piccy of it if you want.

Edited January 3, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

[rodeo_joe1]

Damn. The link above is wrong and too late to edit.

 

Here's the pinout:

[mike_halliwell]

Right. A simple CCT consisting of a CMOS quad Exclusive Or gate package just popped into my head, and could be operated with a cheap 10 pin remote cable. I'll scribble it out and post a piccy of it if you want.

Yes please!

 

I've got a couple of 'disposable' 10 pin plugs from old remotes. I'll see what pins they have....:)

[richard_driscoll]

That may well have been the issue. I must check it. I did have the AF point offset when the camera was tripod mounted - it was useless positioning the AF point squarely between the heads of two portrait sitters side-by-side.

 

If that's the case, then Nikon's programmers need a huge kick up the backside for their plain stupidity. Must check if the same happens with the D800, and must gaffer tape a keyring light to the camera if I ever do a similar gig.

As the man in the shop said to the unhappy customer, "They are all like that sir." My D40 and D7000 are like it and so are a couple of others I looked at the manuals for. Egg on face it's actually mentioned in the D7200 troubleshooting section which I'd thought just stated the glaringly obvious about most things. More annoyingly the real information about the assist light seems to be only in the "menu guide" not in the manual itself. My S/H D7200 didn't come with the menu guide and I think it may only be available on-line; the manual doesn't mention it in the list of stuff you get with the camera.