strange blinking icon in lcd only

[karl edwards]

i just picked up my 990 today (lucky me!) and i've noticed something strange...

in my lcd only, there is a constant blinking icon that is not documented anywhere in the manuals - this icon is a small circle with 2 lines in it pointing to 9 and 12 oclock and resides somewhere between where the battery indicator appears (along the right hand side of the lcd) and the upper most manual focus zone indicator. the icon, in short is floating in no man's land.

i thought at first that this might be some kind of indicator that the internal rechargeable battery needed some juice (new camera out of the box) but i've had fresh batteries installed in the camera for going on 6 hours now and the icon continues to blink.

the mystery icon appears in auto and manual modes and i'm completely stumped.

did anyone else see this kind of thing on their new 990? any ideas what the blinking icon might be? i haven't really jumped into any esoteric menu settings so i doubt that it's the result of anything that i did (it was blinking since i first turned the camera on.)

any help is appreciated.

karl

 

[George20112]

c

 

[Tyler Monson]

Karl,
Set the date and time, then see if it still blinks.

Cheers,

Tyler

 

[karl edwards]

sheesh! thanks -- that worked.

i thought i had set the date, but it looks like i missed the last step (not the most intuitive interface...)

thanks again!

karl

 

[Will Perlis]

Karl,

If the camera has only been powered up for a short time, leave fully charged/fresh batteries in for a while. The internal cell charges from those, and you will lose the date again (and any other personalized settings???) if it runs down.

And I agree about the interface not being exactly intuitive. On the other hand, I'm not sure how I would improve on a situation where there's large amounts of info to cram into a small area. Moving the "commit" function from the shutter button allows the menus to be active while shooting, however.

Anyway, after playing with mine for an evening, IMO, the 990 is a camera , as opposed to the 900 which I would classify as a relatively expensive and mostly frustrating toy quickly relegated to the back of the drawer.

Will

i thought i had set the date, but it looks like i missed the last step
(not the most intuitive interface...)

 

[ian]

Karl,

And I agree about the interface not being exactly intuitive.

Hmm. I can't say I agree there. I haven't cracked the manual
once and I've happily been exploring all the cool features.
Short of the keypad there's no simpler way to set the time and date
that I can see.

I think overall it has an excellent interface.

On the
other hand, I'm not sure how I would improve on a situation where there's
large amounts of info to cram into a small area. Moving the "commit"
function from the shutter button allows the menus to be active while
shooting, however.

Ya, that one's a little hard to get used to. I liked how the shutter
was "do it" on the 950. Now the shutter is always "take a picture"
and rocker-right is do it. At least it's consistent, and I do
take quite a few pictures while I'm in the menus. Change a setting,
take a picture, change it back.. etc..

ian

 

[Coly]

karl,

Before your camera has had batteries installed overnight to charge the internal clock battery, ALL your settings will be lost when you open the battery door..

Coly