david_mccormick

April 8, 2010

L:

Bad contacts on the lenses? Bad contacts on the metering switch? Bad contacts on the Trash and Mode switches (that do the two-button hard format)? The latter can't be true because the normal Trash or Mode functions work just fine?

Thanks, David.

April 8, 2010

Thank you both for the suggestions. However, what about the fact that I can't get the two-button reset to do a clean reset of the camera? That makes me think that it's something more insidious.

Thanks, David

April 7, 2010

Hey, folks:

I went to shoot an event tonight and when I turned on the D300 with 12-24 f/4 DX lens, the camera was in spot focus mode, despite the fact that the metering switch was on the matrix setting. I changed the metering mode switch, removed and replaced the battery, took the lens off and replaced it, swapped in a 17-55 DX lens, did the green button reset, all to no avail. I finally tried the red button reset and it did not seem to do the clear-the-settings reset. I was able to shoot in aperture priority, but it was clear that it was still in spot metering mode. I was able to use exposure compensation to change the exposure to something reasonable. Ultimately, I put the camera in manual mode and got fine shots.

However, have any of you had the metering mode go haywire and if so, what did you do to fix it?

Thanks, David.

January 18, 2010

Elmer: thanks for the information. I had already tested with other lenses and the other lenses worked fine. I was able to move the diaphragm blades with the method you pointed out. After having let the equipment sleep for a few hours and moving the blades, everything seems to be working OK. And the ability to change the metering has returned. That was just weird. Next time I'll remember to sacrifice a chicken before going out on a shoot.

Thanks everyone.

January 17, 2010

The lens was dark when it was on the camera. I can see the diaphragm blades when it's off the camera and stopped down when on the camera. I stopped using it when the field of view was dark.

In addition, now my D300 is only on spot meter; I can't put it back to average or center weighted.

This is getting stranger.

Thanks for your help.

David

January 17, 2010

My beloved 70-200 2.8 VR1 is in a strange state. It appears to be dark to look through, like it's stopped down to some small aperture, and I can't get it back to the normal state. I was also noticing that when I was shooting in a dark auditorium on a monopod and was using the normal VR, sometimes the VR would jump significantly at times. Those may be totally unrelated, but any insight on how to fix the dark view would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, David

November 14, 2009

And I remembered that Scott Kelby had a long blog piece on his backup strategy last year (includes Drobo as part of his): http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1410

November 14, 2009

Great question. I'm sure everyone here has wrestled and agonized over this stuff.

I won't speak to 2-4, but I use Mozy. One issue that I have faced repeatedly with Mozy is that if you try to back up an external hard disk, if you remove it and then re-attach it, Mozy often seems to think this is a new volume and spends eons trying to re-check and backup the drive. I have about 200 GB nominally on Mozy and one of these incidents can mean days to a few weeks for the backup to complete. And I have Verizon Fios with good bandwidth. If you have everything on an internal hard disk it works much, much better. So I'm kind of ambivalent on Mozy at this point. And you have to think about the likelihood that broadband providers will very likely go to volume-tiered service in the next few years, which if you shoot GB's of photos might become a more expensive proposition. Having said that, it's really easy to set up and use.

Another option that I'm considering is Drobo: a very simple multi-disk RAID system. You buy any type of SATA drives of any capacity, stick them in the enclosure, and plug into your computer. This is an on-site storage solution. www.drobo.com

I'm sure you will get lots of good suggestions on this.

September 25, 2009

I agree with Edward: spot meter on the subjects and forget about the background. Don't put any filters between the performance and the camera. I have shot ISO 800-1600 with an f/2.8 lens for stage work and you are just getting enough light. Adding an ND would be an unnecessary waste of light.

September 25, 2009

My 14 year old son is using one of my 2 FE2's in an intro high school photography class this fall. Takes me back nearly 30 years to my adolescence. I still love the feel of that camera with the 50 f/1.4. It was my first camera. You never forget....

September 20, 2009

Thanks for the quick response. I tried with the flash set on 1/128 and I could see that it works for up close at 800 ISO, f/8, and 1/60th, but the histogram seems to show some variation in light levels when I went from 3 to 6 FPS. But I can appreciate that you have to be careful with temperature. I know the SB900 has a thermal cutoff to prevent such overheating.

September 20, 2009

I have a Nikon D300 and a SB-800 and SB-900 and was wondering whether you can do high frame rate photography with them. I am looking to shoot my son skateboarding near dusk. I can do 3-8 FPS with my D300, but I can't figure out whether you drive the flashes that fast. I see you can set the flash up for repeat at specified frequencies for different power ratios, but that's for a single frame. I'm looking to do multiple frames. I currently on have AA NiMH batteries. Would you need battery packs for this to work?

Any insights appreciated.

Thanks, David.

July 3, 2009

Thanks for the quick response. The AA option sounds like a nice economical alternative to buying the ELN4 batteries, charger, and adapter for the grip.

Any sense of the difference in battery life of, say, eight 2500 mAH batteries vs. the EN-EL4a battery pack if you are going to shoot 8 fps? The EN-EL4a is rated at 2500 mAH.

July 3, 2009

I have a D300 and am considering getting an MB-D10 grip for it. I have read other thread (eg, http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00QaNC). I am interested in getting the 8 frames per second with the 8 AA batteries. What I couldn't figure out from the existing threads is: when you go for the 8 AA batteries, should/can you have the EN-EL3e in the body or should you run just from the AA's?

Thanks, David.

July 1, 2009

I just got an SB-900 to go with my D300. I was reading in the manual that only the D3 and D700 are able to do the filter detection to adjust auto white balance in the camera. Is there any likelihood that the D300 could be allowed to do that (via a firmware update)? It would be kind of nice if it could do it.

Thanks, David.

June 29, 2009

I just had an SB-800 go bad on me. If you have tried Matt's suggestion and have also reset all the SB-600 settings to the defaults, as Wouter suggests, try the FLASH button: if you press that and the flash does not go off, you have a hardware problem (like a blown flash tube). That's what happened to me. Mine would not flash, but I would fast flashing of the READY light. I just sent mine back to Nikon repair (looks like ~$100 and 3-4 weeks to repair). David

June 24, 2009

Dan: Thanks for the response, but there is a user-accessible function in all the recent DSLR models for doing a per-lens autofocus adjustment. Even the pros have said that they use the facility. I suspect that Nikon would not have included the option if it were not useful. After all, even for the best Nikon lenses (e.g., the constant aperture lenses) there are manufacturing variability and on the variable aperture lenses the problem is more acute. There have been some threads on it, but I'm polling for best practices.

June 24, 2009

I have a D300 and have tried fairly unsuccessfully to use the autofocus fine-tuning for my lenses. I was using a focus chart that I got from Thom Hogan's D300 guide (guide highly recommended!). It is a high-contrast target which you are supposed to shoot at perpendicular to the chart. Thom says that when the image is best in focus, you should see a moire pattern with the grey-scale dots, as well as having the sharp, black lines in focus. I use a tripod with cable release and a reasonable shutter speed (ca. 1/500 s). I have a very hard time figuring out what is the best-focused image is. I know my eyes are 47, but 100% magnification on the images are fairly ambiguous over a range of steps.

Are there other steps I should be taking or a better focus target that people have been using successfully? Do they shot a chart that is meant to be shot at a 45 degree angle? Do you need to print the charts on a high-quality laser printer vs. a good inkjet printer?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers, David.

June 23, 2009

I did some poking around Nikonians and Flikr, and it sounds like it's a blown flash tube. I will try the batteries and cleaning the contacts. Sounds like about $100 and a month to get it repaired by Nikon. Bummer.

June 22, 2009

I was trying to use two SB800's off camera. I was using Commander mode using the on-camera flash as the master. I was able to get one flash to fire just fine. Both flashes were set to Channel 1; one flash was Group A and the other Group B. Both would cycle to READY. There were some times that it would flash, but it would be perpetually underexposed. When trying to press the red FLASH button on the suspect flash, it would not fire, just gave 3 seconds of the READY light. I put the camera on flash and put the camera in TTL mode, but it won't fire.

Any ideas?

Thanks, David.

March 11, 2009

That's very helpful to know. Returning to my original question, how much CTO would be required to balance a 2700 K light? 1 full cut CTO seems to balance 3000K. Thanks, David.

March 10, 2009

Thanks for that. I'm new to flash, so it's a lot to wrap my head around. I guess I'll just add CTO in 1/4 increments until it balances.

Bob: Just out of interest, how do you approach getting the color balance right in the gels when you walk into a new room? What's your workflow?

Thanks, David.

March 10, 2009

I would recommend reading David Hobby's (aka, The Strobist, http://strobist.blogspot.com) post on a two-speedlight solution for an indoor portrait:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/05/on-assignment-two-speedlight-group-shot.html

Depending on whether you have control over the gym lighting, you may need color correcting gels to match the color of the flash light to the ambient light (fluorescent?).

Off camera flash for sure. Use your D300 Commander mode for triggering an SB800 (in Remote mode).

Will some people have glasses? Try to get them all on one side and angled away from the flash.

I really recommend reading The Strobist.

David.

March 9, 2009

I'm using Nikon SB800 speedlights. From what I've read, a full cut CTO will get you to 3000K, the equivalent of 100 W tungsten. How much CTO is required to get to the equivalent of a 75 W tungsten bulb (ca. 2700 K).

Thanks, David.

March 5, 2009

Nikon just raised their US prices at least on their lenses about 15-20% (as reflected at places like B&H and Adorama and reputable local dealers) that I was told were based on the depreciation of the $US vs. the Japanese Yen. For example, the price of some of the very highly desirable f/2.8 zooms are up about $200.

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