[rbowen47]

I've had a *istDL for a number of years, taken a lot of pictures and been very plerased with the camera.

Today I took some shots and nothing was apparently wrong. However when I came to look at the pictures they were all completely black.
The size was about right (500k) but of the picture no sign.

I change d the batteries asnd then the memory and each time took some shots but with the same result - jpgs with about the same siz but no content.

It sounds as if the writing of the frame to memory is failing (but why the jpg of 500K).

There are a lot of setting availoable on the Menu but I didnt change anything intentionally and could not think of anything that had been changed unintentionally.

Any body got any ideas, an explanation, a soluton. ...?


Regards

Roger Bowen

[Philoslothical]

A wild guess would be that the shutter is gone. The mirror is still articulating correctly when you shoot?

What (if anything) do you see if you crank the brightness of one of the images all the way up in a graphics editor? Is it just severely underexposed, with some indication that the sensor saw *something*, or is it uniformly black across the whole frame?

[v5planet]

I've had a *istDL for a number of years, taken a lot of pictures and been very plerased with the camera.

Today I took some shots and nothing was apparently wrong. However when I came to look at the pictures they were all completely black.
The size was about right (500k) but of the picture no sign.

I change d the batteries asnd then the memory and each time took some shots but with the same result - jpgs with about the same siz but no content.

It sounds as if the writing of the frame to memory is failing (but why the jpg of 500K).

There are a lot of setting availoable on the Menu but I didnt change anything intentionally and could not think of anything that had been changed unintentionally.

Any body got any ideas, an explanation, a soluton. ...?


Regards

Roger Bowen

Could be any number of problems:

1) the shutter could be failing to open
2) the mirror in front of your sensor may not be flipping up
3) the sensor may not be functioning
4) the software may not be writing the data properly

[Adam]

Try taking some pictures without a card in the camera. Is the result showing up in instant preview?

Adam
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[seventhdr]

As per the poster above, it could be any of these problems. So you need to start eliminating things.

1. Try another SD card that you know works.
2. Try the current SD card in another device. These two options will rule out the SD card.
3. Set the camera to Bulb "B", take the lens off and activate the shutter. Do you see the sensor. Does the mirror lift? Do the shutter curtains open and close?

Otherwise I think that it is time for a new body.

Regards

Chris

[rbowen47]

Thank you for the replies!

Here goes with some updates.
1. Try another SD card that you know works.
Card works OK
2. Try the current SD card in another device. These two options will rule out the SD card.
Card work OK
3. Set the camera to Bulb "B", take the lens off and activate the shutter. Do you see the sensor. Does the mirror lift? Do the shutter curtains open and close?
The mirror lifts and I can see the sensor. Not sure about the shutter curtains. What

4. Brightening the picture reveals nothing (i.e. it looks as if nothing has been written)

5. Exposing without memory in the camera the preview is as black as the final recording.

Are we approaching time to get a new body?

Regards and thanks

Roger Bowen

[Philoslothical]

Are we approaching time to get a new body?

It's sounding that way, sorry. From what you tested, it sounds like either the sensor or circuit board.

Does your model have a menu option to reset the whole camera to default settings? At this point it wouldn't hurt, but I wouldn't expect any miracles either. You could also try flashing the firmware, if that's possible for your camera.

[rbowen47]

Thanks again for the replies.

I wanted to add that the exif data on the jpeg was accessible and looked very much as expected thereby indicating that at least something sensible is being transferred to memory. Does this indicate that the mainboard is OK?

I'll check for later firmware and reset to factory defaults later today.

Regards and Thanks

Roger Bowen