NIKON D800 E

[paulhk]

Hi,

I want to find out if anybody else has the same problem.

Since the very beginning, I owned NIKON D800E, and I have a power problem.

During the shooting, on average, the camera shuts itself off 4-8 times.

It looks like it is loading the picture, and I wait 1 minute and it is still loading. When I turn off the power, the lcd monitor still shows that the power is on even if I turn off the switch. The worst part is, that the picture is not saved on the card. I went to NIKON 5 or 6 times, and they cannot find out the problem. They tell me that my camera is up to standards. I took a picture of the power switch off with the LCD on. It is frustrating that during the job the camera doesn't work properly. Looks like NIKON doesn't want to admit the problem and fix it. I'm thinking to switch to CANON. Since they opened the headquarters right across the NIKON. Is anybody else having the same problem?

 

[Robin Casady]

No, never happened to me.

 

[MisterHairy]

When this happens, is it always with the same lens? When you sent your camera to Nikon, did you send the lens with it?

 

[BackInTheGame]

Hi,

I want to find out if anybody else has the same problem.

Since the very beginning, I owned NIKON D800E, and I have a power problem.

During the shooting, on average, the camera shuts itself off 4-8 times.

It looks like it is loading the picture, and I wait 1 minute and it is still loading. When I turn off the power, the lcd monitor still shows that the power is on even if I turn off the switch. The worst part is, that the picture is not saved on the card. I went to NIKON 5 or 6 times, and they cannot find out the problem. They tell me that my camera is up to standards. I took a picture of the power switch off with the LCD on. It is frustrating that during the job the camera doesn't work properly. Looks like NIKON doesn't want to admit the problem and fix it. I'm thinking to switch to CANON. Since they opened the headquarters right across the NIKON. Is anybody else having the same problem?

If you are talking about preview, I have had an image-load lock up occasionally on just about any digital cam. Just half pressing the shutter button or AF-ON has always solved the problem for me. I don't see it as an issue, and not really an irritant. I have never lost anything when it happened.

 

[axcentphoto]

Fortunately, this has never happened to me. D800, one year old...Brent

 

[jjnik]

No, never happened to me.

 

[dave gaines]

It sounds like the camera is struggling to write images to the card. Have you formatted the card in the camera? Also check the card for write issues. Maybe try to write to the card from the computer using a card reader (not the camera). Try a new card?

I have no issues with my D800e. Good luck.

 

[wasserball]

Maybe a bad battery. Try another one, even a generic battery.

 

[Schroedingers_cat]

A tendency to "hang" while saving or trying to view an image is occasionally reported. As I'm sure you already know, if the camera is trying to save an image you can't turn it off. Even though you have probably tried to rule it out already, I suspect the memory card.

Nikon's efforts not withstanding, if I were trying to solve this issue on my own camera I believe I would start with a two button reset and a different memory card freshly formatted in the camera. Preferably a SanDisk and one of the faster cards. Fully charged battery and no settings altered from what you get after the reset.

In any case try a different high quality card from a reputable manufacturer.

 

[Greg Gebhardt]

as if you try to turn the camera off in the middle of writing it will not turn off.

Sounds like a corrupted card that is either beyond repair or in need of formatting.

Where did the card come from as many bootlegged cards are out there.

Where are you OP?

 

[PHXAZCRAIG]

Fact: Never happened to my D800e, which is now almost a year old.

Guess: Here's what I call a 'plausible scenario/cause'. First, think about this - you shoot a burst of images, filling up the D800e buffer and watch it write that buffer out to the card. Takes a few seconds. If you turn off the camera at this time, it will not power down until the buffer has flushed to the card.

So what if you have a bad card? Let's say the camera is trying to write to a 'bad spot' on the card and cannot get the image to save. Turning off the camera doesn't interrupt the attempt to write the image out, and it never completes.

So my conjecture is that something is going wrong writing the image to the card, and the power issue is related to that.

Things to try are, obviously, using a different card, a different brand of card, and trying with only the CF or SD slots filled.

If this is happening with multiple cards, both CF and SD, then I'd suspect the circuitry in the camera that deals with this to be faulty, though that seems a lot less likely than a bad card.

 

[T O Shooter]

as if you try to turn the camera off in the middle of writing it will not turn off.

Sounds like a corrupted card that is either beyond repair or in need of formatting.

Where did the card come from as many bootlegged cards are out there.

Where are you OP?

 

[Simone S]

Yes paulhk..i have the same problem on both D800 and D800 E! I shoot events with external flash and several lenses..and the camere lock-up every 100-150 shots and it can lock up 2-3 times consequently! Camera is locking up for few seconds..even switching on and off doen't help! I tried several memory cards and, mostly, in events i shoot jpg only and never in brust..so it's not a problem of buffer! It happens to both cameras only when the SB flashes are mounted on camera! (with 3 different sb900 and two differents sb700). D800 went in service to Nikon but the problem is still there! New D800 E has the same problem..planning to give back also that one for repair! Never had the problem in studio or in daylight if no external flash is connected...

Are you also using flash?

 

[yvind Strm]

Not seen this with my D800E, and fast Sandisk cards.

I feel your pain, its most irritating - my Sigma SD14 had the same error, sporadically when shooting one image with images in the buffer. Write lamp on forever. Had to drop the battery, and lost all subsequent images. Many (or most) SD14 had this error, which Sigma solved with the SD15.

I think its worth trying another card.

Hi,

I want to find out if anybody else has the same problem.

Since the very beginning, I owned NIKON D800E, and I have a power problem.

During the shooting, on average, the camera shuts itself off 4-8 times.

It looks like it is loading the picture, and I wait 1 minute and it is still loading. When I turn off the power, the lcd monitor still shows that the power is on even if I turn off the switch. The worst part is, that the picture is not saved on the card. I went to NIKON 5 or 6 times, and they cannot find out the problem. They tell me that my camera is up to standards. I took a picture of the power switch off with the LCD on. It is frustrating that during the job the camera doesn't work properly. Looks like NIKON doesn't want to admit the problem and fix it. I'm thinking to switch to CANON. Since they opened the headquarters right across the NIKON. Is anybody else having the same problem?

 

[Simone S]

Oh..forgot to mention that with the same card,lens and flash i never had same problem on my d600..

 

[Simone S]

I have several sandisk and lexar new and fast CF and several older cards and it's happening with all of them...and with all of them it's not happening with d600 or in d800-d800E when no flash is attached!

 

[Raul]

regards

 

[Hojomo]

Hi,

I want to find out if anybody else has the same problem.

Since the very beginning, I owned NIKON D800E, and I have a power problem.

During the shooting, on average, the camera shuts itself off 4-8 times.

It looks like it is loading the picture, and I wait 1 minute and it is still loading. When I turn off the power, the lcd monitor still shows that the power is on even if I turn off the switch. The worst part is, that the picture is not saved on the card. I went to NIKON 5 or 6 times, and they cannot find out the problem. They tell me that my camera is up to standards. I took a picture of the power switch off with the LCD on. It is frustrating that during the job the camera doesn't work properly. Looks like NIKON doesn't want to admit the problem and fix it. I'm thinking to switch to CANON. Since they opened the headquarters right across the NIKON. Is anybody else having the same problem?

I ran into a similiar situation on very rare occasions prior to sending in my D800E to Nikon USA LA (http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/52657872). I didn't even recall it until reading your post (luckily was always at non-paying shooting times).

I think my issue coincided with my updating the firmware to it's latest version (still) in early fall of last year. I had never noticed it prior and chopped it up to some random bug. In Nikon's favor, it always wrote whatever frames I had to the card and I never lost any. It seemed like the OS in a fatal loop, but in retrospect maybe it was related to the power.

It hasn't happened since I got the camera back. I was charged (under warranty) to replace the power unit. I also had backfocus AF issues that seem to have been resolved, but I haven't done any proper tests. What I know for sure is that AF seems to be much more accurate wide open compared to before (this is with the Holy Trinity).

Have you been able to duplicate this in front of Nikon over the course of 5 or 6 visits? I have become very pessimistic about Nikon's service and overall approach to service, but if they aren't able to duplicate it....

 

[onlyfairways]

Hi paulhk.

I have had a similar issue with my D800E. I have only had the power/green activity light stay on for lengthy periods of time when the camera is saving an image to the SD card (while my CF card is out of the camera). It may be that I have a particularly slow SD card but the problem disappeared when I put the CF card back in the camera.

I'm not sure this helps you, but may be worth checking.

Regards,

 

[Daniel Bliss]

See the liked posts above for some good basic advice on memory cards -- if you do not properly format the card in-camera, and that means hitting the double format buttons, waiting for the flashing For in the LCD display on the top plate, and then while the For is flashing, hitting the two format buttons AGAIN, and making sure you have the full amount of available images remaining (in my case, 588 or 589 compressed 14-bit RAW on a 32GB card), you WILL have trouble with this camera. The files are too large and write speeds are too high to withstand any flakiness regarding the card.

But I'll add one more point -- you really want a fast card with this camera. Yes, I know the buffer is huge, but the lack of buffering in LiveView and the sheer size of the files means that the fastest possible card will save you a lot of trouble. Things like zooming in on playback, or waiting for Liveview to make the camera available again, or waiting to be able to switch the camera off when images are writing to the card -- these become minor issues at worst with a 1000x card, but very quickly cause serious problems with slower cards.

I too have had freeze-ups on the D800, but not since I cut the sloppiness out of my card routine.