D700 Hotshoe Flash Firing By Itself

I have had this problem with my D700 and SB-900 flash. When I have the Sb-900 on the camera and I am walking the flash will sometimes fire off all by itself. The other night it started doing it more anmore. I then switched over to a SB-800 and it still continued firing the flash off randomly.

The flash seems to be on tight on the hotshoe. So I have no clue what is causing it to fire.

Anyone else having tis problem??? Any suggestions before I send it in??

I know Nikon will want the flash and camera both but it is doing it will all of my Sb-800's and SB-900's

Others have had this problem.
Seems that if you tighten the rails on the camera a bit it stops.

Seems that a small amount of play causes the contacts to be intermitent and the flash fires by itself.

Some said they used a small gentle tap with a hammer to bend the side rails down just a tad.

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Sam
http://www.samjsternphotography.com

Thanks I will give it a try.

I have had the flash fire a few times. It was my finger pushing the FV lock button on the front. The controls seem a little more tightly packed than on the D3.

Si

My D700 has been doing the same with either flash sb800 or 900

I moved the rear part of the hotshoe down with pliers so the flash was tight but still does the same. I guess will have to try to push all of it down a tad.
But it is still fairly tight with not much movement.

Camera is only a couple of months old. No drops.

Mke

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Nikon D3 D700 Epson 4800 Epson r800 Gretag Eye one Eizo cg monitor

it is the flash automatically re-calibrating itself.

Seriously haven't heard of this one before, be interested to hear what the cause is if you ever find out!

regards
Tony

I have had this happen a few times. Clean the contacts on both the flash and camera using an erasure or contact cleaner.

Sorry meant eraser! I use the rubber on the end of a pencil and it cleans of any dirt or contaminent from fingers etc.

Hi everyone,

I had same problem with my D700 & the SB-900 flashes firing & strobing by itself.

I took it to a Nikon factory authorized service center here in Miami, Florida. They first cleaned both the D700 hotshoe and the SB-900 and still had same problem.

I had to shoot a wedding and needed my camera & flashes.

The firing & strobing was worse. The flash at one point stay on like a flashlight.

To make a long story short I got a idea to stick a pin on the left side of the hotshoe forcing the the flash not to have any movement. It actually worked!

I went back and told them what I did to stop the problem and they decided to change the hotshoe of the D700.

I have the camera for three days now testing it and it's like a brand new camera again.

HOPE THIS HELPS!!!

Well mines at Nikon NPS for service. Tried everything and it only became worse. Even SB800's were firing erractically. I will let everyone know what Nikon says.

I have same problem. has the camera hotshoe replace. Bingo.. no more problem.

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You are seeing from my eyes!!!
Derek....
Nikon D700, D60, D40
MB-D10, SB-900, SB 800x2, SD-8a, R1C1

Nikon 35/2, 50/1.4, 85/1.4, 17-35/2.8 28-70/2.8 70-200/2.8 VR Tonkia 10-17 Fisheye

Hi evryone,

I had the hotshoe replaced and everything is perfect.

I have a friend that had the same problem with his d700 and I told him to get the hotshoe replaced and his camera and flash work perfect now too.
Hope this helps !!

Well I sent off my D700 to NPS for service on 11/24/09. It was signed for on 11/30/09 that it arrived at the dock. Usually NPS orders are logged in right away but I waited a few days to see if they had put it in the system. On 12/03/09 it still was not logged in. So I called and they could not find my repair order in their system. WTF??? I did it online and printed out the form after it was entered.

Well after talking to someone whwo could barely speak english for about 30 minutes she said she didn't understand why it wasn't there because I was a NPS member and it should have been logged in when it was signed for. I was told she would look into it and call me back.

Two days later I still had not received a call back and it still had not recieved the usual email saying it was there and had been assigned a repair order number. So I called back and talked to another person whom also barely spoke english. I went through the same spill for another 30 minutes and all he could say was it might take several weeks before it gets logged in. But wait he then said " You are a NPS member it should already be logged in". DUH!!

So I asked to speak with a supervisor. Waited another 20 minutes to speak to another hard to understand person only to be told she would call me back in a few whours. No call back so I emailed the NPS represenative after hunting for a phone number or email address on the NPS website. I left a email and also a voice mail explaining my situation that I needed my camera repaired or a loaner camera but without a service repair number I could not get a loaner. I did not hear back from her but the next day I got a email from the service center says that NPS had called them about my camera and SB-900 and they had found it and it was in repair.

On 12/07/2009 I got an email saying it was been repaired for moderate repairs??? Nothinng more that "Hotshoe to Ground" wwas noted. The next day I received a letter wanting me to apporove the repairs to my camera and flash. It was sent to my PO Box so I was mad that I was going to have to call and approve a repair that I had already approved prior to shipping the camera on my NPS repair form. The letter said the total of reapirs was $196.00. I had preapproved $600 for the camera and $200 for the flash so again WTF???

I was surprized that when I got back to my office I found my camera and flash waiting on me. Repair order was dated 12/03/2009. OK I'm confused.

Anyway the long story short it appears that whatever they repaired has for now taken care of my problems of my flash firing by itself and my constant overexposure problem. It also mentioned that they replaced the rubber grips, cleaned my sensor, and updated my firmware. I couldn't tell the difference in the rubber if they replaced it and I could swear I had my firmware up to date.

I will keep everyone posted if it works after I shoot a few more jobs.

I have the same problem with my D200 and SB-18 (I think that is the version of the strobe.)

Regards,

Doug Fejer
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Dallas

Its a loose fit problem. Nothing major.
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BigPixel / Hawaii

After being out in the rain with my D200 I got similar problems. I found then it was related to some chalky residue on the flash hot shoe, and cleaning it up properly solved the problem.

I had a similar problem with my d700 firing by itself sometimes almost in strobe mode with 3 different flashes sb28/sb800/sb900. I had it booked in to nikon service when a friend suggested I try a camera reset (the 2 green buttons) and it worked, all the flashes now behave normally. I don't know if this will solve your problem but its worth a try before you have to hand over more money to nikon

Is it set to SU-4 mode and being triggered by other light source? Just a wild stab...
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Manny
http://www.pbase.com/gonzalu/
http://www.mannyphoto.com/
FCAS Member - http://fcasmembers.com/

I have the same problem. Nikon D700 with SB-400, SB-600 or SB-800.

The worst part is this is half of the problem. I many cases when I pick up the camera and start shooting:

• the camera would not take the picture - exposure meter still turned off.
• the flash would not fire at all - very very underexposed image.

As soon as I switch off the flash, the camera behaves normally. But when I switch it on, I get unexpected behavior:

• hot shoe flash would fire on its own.
• pressing the shutter button would not take a picture.
• pressing the shutter button takes a picture without firing the flash.
• pressing the shutter button takes a pictures with flash - expected behavior (although sometimes well overexposed).

Thanks,

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Hussam

Well just to follow this up. I still have misfires every now and then. I also still have an occassionally blown out picture. It's strange because I can take one and it will be majorly blown out and take another and it's fine. I didn't change a thing on the camera or flash and both taken from same position and identical camera settings and time. I just normally take two pictures of each subject and one will be fine and the other blown out. Very Strange.

I also still have a problem with the flash overheating and shutting down. This happens even with the thermal shutdown turned off. I am not a heavy flash user. At the most I may take 3-4 pictures per minute. I though if it was turned off this would bypass the shut off until you fried your flash. Is this not the case or am I doing something wrong.

I hope they have this fixed on the new SB-700. They need a new pro level flash to come out with all the new stuff they are releasing now.

Also the hotshoe on the D700 is still letting the flash move around on the shoe. Way to loose compared to all my other cameras. Would have thought they would have replaced it when I sent it in for repair.

I think Nikon needs to admit there is a problem with the design of the SB-900 and also the hotshoe on the D700.