My K200D let me down today

madbrain · 06-28-2009, 10:58 PM

While shooting the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade.
The camera locked up - no buttons were responding anymore. The top LCD display was frozen too. On/off buttons to no avail.

It took a friend about a minute to help me unscrew the battery grip from the camera, and for me to open the K200D battery compartment . I just removed the batteries and put them back in. The camera started again. I didn't use the battery grip the rest of the shoot.

Unfortunately, believe it or not, that one minute was the time that I had been waiting for the most during the 4-hour parade - asian-pacific islander groups. The hot guys were waving at me, and there was nothing I could shoot. So incredibly frustrating.

To be fair, the camera worked fine for the other 240+ minutes of the parade. I was shooting a lot, about 1200 pictures, or one every 12 seconds on average. And I shot another hundred after the parade. I am still reviewing all the shots. I will add a few to this thread once I figure out how.

Edit: I figured it out. Astute viewers will recognize out gay lieutenant Dan Choi in the first picture.
And the kid in the next-to-last picture was watching the parade from the window, and completely unaware he was being shot.

The weather was the greatest I have ever seen in SF. Completely clear sky, perfect temperature. Most of my photos came out very vivid and colorful.

I am looking for a new picture host since ovi will no longer show large picture sizes as it used to ...

Last edited by madbrain; 06-15-2012 at 12:36 AM.

rawr · 06-28-2009, 11:52 PM

Great photos. Pity about the camera problem.

So what do you think caused the lockup? Overheating of the sensor or some other internal circuitry? Maybe the one minute break to reload the batteries was enough to cool it down a bit.

Have a look into the EXIF of the photo's taken just prior to the lockup. Buried in the EXIF for the K200D is the camera temperature at the time the photo was taken, probably at a location near the sensor. That might reveal something.

Or maybe there was some crud on one of the the battery contacts?

madbrain · 06-29-2009, 12:02 AM

Hi,

Originally posted by rawr

Great photos.

Thanks !

Quote:

Pity about the camera problem.

So what do you think caused the lockup? Overheating of the sensor or some other internal circuitry? Maybe the one minute break to reload the batteries was enough to cool it down a bit.

I wish I knew for sure. It was about 80-85F outside, great weather, but not overly hot. I was in the shade and so was the camera.

I think it's more likely some bug in the firmware than anything else. I have one picture file that cannot be read (invalid JPEG) which makes me think the powering off the battery interrupted the saving of that file.

Maybe the camera got into an infinite loop doing the JPEG compression ? Just a software engineer's guess.

Anyway, I have never seen this happen before with the K200D. I sure hope it never does again !

Quote:

Have a look into the EXIF of the photo's taken just prior to the lockup. Buried in the EXIF for the K200D is the camera temperature at the time the photo was taken, probably at a location near the sensor. That might reveal something.

Thanks, I will check.

Quote:

Or maybe there was some crud on one of the the battery contacts?

Well, with the battery grip, it's always a possibility. I have some issues with all the pins not making contact before. But today I checked that everything was ok and screwed it in tightly. I actually used the vertical grip button to shoot. And I had the battery setting to "auto". I am not sure which batteries were used first.

Anyway, what I can tell you is that when I just disconnected the battery grip, it wasn't enough to reset the camera. I had to open the camera's battery compartment to power it off and reset it. Then it started again just fine. By the time the problem happened, I had already taken about 800 shots.
Edit: the corrupt file, IMGP8256.JPG is actually 0 bytes. So I won't be able to gather any data from it. I don't see anything wrong with the preceding picture - it looks like a good picture. Do you know how I can get at the temperature EXIF data ?

rawr · 06-29-2009, 01:12 AM

Re the temperature EXIF, if you are on Windows visit PhotoME - Exif, IPTC & ICC Metadata Editor and download their excellent freeware EXIF viewer and editor. The open up one of your JPG or RAW file and look under the 'Manufacturer's Notes' section - there is an entry there below 'Image Processing Count' for 'Camera Temperature'.

It is usually quite a bit higher than ambient temperature, I've noticed.

One simple solution to your problem BTW, as used by the pros, is to carry 2 or more cameras with you on an important shoot

When one dies, instantly swap over to another.

Also: need more photos of cute guys.

madbrain · 06-29-2009, 01:30 AM

Originally posted by rawr

Re the temperature EXIF, if you are on Windows visit PhotoME - Exif, IPTC & ICC Metadata Editor and download their excellent freeware EXIF viewer and editor. The open up one of your JPG or RAW file and look under the 'Manufacturer's Notes' section - there is an entry there below 'Image Processing Count' for 'Camera Temperature'.

It is usually quite a bit higher than ambient temperature, I've noticed.

Thanks !
It was 35°C for the last picture before the problem.
I would think that's within specs.

Quote:

One simple solution to your problem BTW, as used by the pros, is to carry 2 or more cameras with you on an important shoot

When one dies, instantly swap over to another.

Yeah. I know of that solution

I'm not a pro. I never dreamed my camera would die, let alone at that particular instant. That's why I had a 16GB SDHC card, loads of batteries, external flash (for subjects in the shade), and a battery grip.

The 2 camera solution is expensive. At least if the 2nd camera is a DSLR. It is also too heavy / too large for me.

My only other camera is a Canon P&S A590IS. It takes pictures so slowly that it would have been useless in this situation. And the pictures it manages to take are very grainy. I positively cannot stand that camera. The only good thing I can say about it is that it's better than my cell phone camera ...

Quote:

Also: need more photos of cute guys.

That I can do .

Damn Brit · 06-29-2009, 01:33 AM

I suggest you start a new thread in Post Your Photos for the pictures, that would be more appropriate. More people will see them there as well.
I was there as well, didn't get to see the parade but I was wandering around in front of the Civic Center for a couple of hours and took some pics.
If you want to start that thread, I'll probably add to it (if you don't mind). Maybe there were some other members there as well who want to join in.

BTW, mark the title NSFW to keep people happy and in their jobs.

madbrain · 06-29-2009, 01:43 AM

Good idea. I tried to post there. But now the forum software won't let me because the photos are already posted here. I bet I can fool it with some minor EXIF edits with Photome to repost them.
Hmm, that didn't work, but something else did.

The new thread is at : https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/64730-san-francisco-2009...-pictures.html
And no, I don't mind you joining the thread at all

I forgot to put NSFW in the title inadvertedly. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the forum will let me edit the thread title. I hope nobody loses their job, there is no full nudity in any of the pictures.

Originally posted by Damn Brit

I suggest you start a new thread in Post Your Photos for the pictures, that would be more appropriate. More people will see them there as well.
I was there as well, didn't get to see the parade but I was wandering around in front of the Civic Center for a couple of hours and took some pics.
If you want to start that thread, I'll probably add to it (if you don't mind). Maybe there were some other members there as well who want to join in.

BTW, mark the title NSFW to keep people happy and in their jobs.

Last edited by madbrain; 06-29-2009 at 02:06 AM.

Damn Brit · 06-29-2009, 03:59 AM

I've edited the title for you.

PinarelloOnly · 06-29-2009, 12:21 PM

Originally posted by madbrain

While shooting the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade.
The camera locked up - no buttons were responding anymore. The top LCD display was frozen too. On/off buttons to no avail.

It took a friend about a minute to help me unscrew the battery grip from the camera, and for me to open the K200D battery compartment . I just removed the batteries and put them back in. The camera started again. I didn't use the battery grip the rest of the shoot.

..

Never had that problem or even read about your problem using lithiums.

Were you using Eneloops with your grip I wonder....

madbrain · 06-29-2009, 01:06 PM

Originally posted by PinarelloOnly

Never had that problem or even read about your problem using lithiums.

Were you using Eneloops with your grip I wonder....

Yes, I had 4 eneloops in the camera and 4 eneloops in the grip. Neither set was recharged recently (probably a month ago), but that's the whole point of eneloops.

I checked the EXIF information about battery status in the shot before the problem occurred, and it reported that both the grip and camera batteries were OK . And it was operating on camera battery, not grip battery. Which explains why I had to open the camera's battery compartment to power it off.

**Canada_Rockies** · 06-29-2009, 03:10 PM

Originally posted by madbrain

Yes, I had 4 eneloops in the camera and 4 eneloops in the grip. Neither set was recharged recently (probably a month ago), but that's the whole point of eneloops.

I checked the EXIF information about battery status in the shot before the problem occurred, and it reported that both the grip and camera batteries were OK . And it was operating on camera battery, not grip battery. Which explains why I had to open the camera's battery compartment to power it off.

I use a k10d, so this might not be pertinent to your situation, but on the other hand, it might. I have observed that when the grip battery fails - I have the camera set to use the grip battery first - I must turn off and on the camera to have the camera actually switch to the camera battery. There is at least one other post in this forum somewhere that observed the same thing.

I set my camera to grip first, so that I can recharge the grip battery while continuing to shoot with the camera battery, and replace the grip batter later.

madbrain · 06-29-2009, 03:41 PM

Hi,

Originally posted by Canada_Rockies

I use a k10d, so this might not be pertinent to your situation, but on the other hand, it might. I have observed that when the grip battery fails - I have the camera set to use the grip battery first - I must turn off and on the camera to have the camera actually switch to the camera battery. There is at least one other post in this forum somewhere that observed the same thing.

I set my camera to grip first, so that I can recharge the grip battery while continuing to shoot with the camera battery, and replace the grip batter later.

I have no evidence that it was a power/battery issue at all so far.

There was still a display on the top LCD - ISO, f number, speed. It was just completely frozen. If the camera had lost power, than that would have disappeared.

The back LCD was showing black.

To me, it just looked like the camera was stuck - some firmware bug, or doing some very long internal processing. I can't really explain it.

FYI, my camera still powers fine with the camera batteries, and shows half charge on top. I just swapped them for the grip batteries. It shows full charge.

I just put the original camera batteries back in the camera, and it now shows low charge.

I also connected the grip. The setup menu show low charge for the camera battery, and full charge (green) for the grip battery.

Of course, the battery charge indicator on the K200D is often not very accurate, but at least I know the batteries are still OK.

Keep in mind that I was able to shoot 500 more pictures after the incident, after I removed the battery grip.

I think it's possible that the grip batteries were not used at all during my entire shoot. Since I was shooting so fast, I hardly used the back LCD for picture review. I simply did not have time. My finger went right back on the shutter button, and focus will turn off the LCD instantly. The LCD is the power hungry part of the camera.

I am going to discharge both sets of batteries in my MAHA C 9000 to see how much charge remains in them. I expect not too much in the set that was in the camera, and a good charge in the set that was in the grip. I will report here later.

Edit: the starting voltage is pretty low in the eneloops that were in the camera : 1.06V, 1.11V, 1.05V and 1.04V . But they are still good enough to power the K200D, amazingly. Though the battery indicator shows low charge. I'm discharging at 500 mA . I expect it won't be too long before they are depleted.
Edit2: the discharge on that set finished with 36 mA, 121 mA, 33 mA, and 97 mA remaining in each battery respectively.
Edit3: I started discharging the second set, from the grip, also at 500 mA. The battery voltage was 1.19V, 1.17V, 1.19V and 1.20V. Since the normal voltage for NiMH (even eneloops) is 1.20V, this is typical of near full-charge batteries.

Edit4: I reviewed the EXIF data of a few random files that I shot yesterday with PhotoME, before I took out the grip. If I believe the data, then they were all taken with the "Body battery". So, I think I just got 1300 shots on one set of eneloops yesterday. And it wasn't a freshly charged set, either. I had taken about 100 pictures earlier this month on that same set. I think it was charged during the last week of may or early june. The first pictures taken with the set were on June 8.
So, it looks like I got about 1400 shots total on one set of eneloops. That must be some kind of record ! I wish PhotoMe could give me the stats on how many were without flash, built-in flash or external flash. I know not too many were with the built-in flash, just a few. I did not change the other 4 eneloops in my flash this month, either

Edit5 : the grip batteries discharge came in at 1642, 1653, 1659, 1630 mAh respectively. I would have expected a bit more. Maybe some of the individual shots were done with the grip after all. I didn't check the EXIF of all 800 shots that I took with the grip on.

To be back on-topic ... I'm still upset about the camera freezing up.

**Canada_Rockies** · 06-29-2009, 03:47 PM

One other thought just came to mind, madbrain - I have personally experienced (again the k10 disclaimer, of course) that the camera just ignored me when one of the grip e-dials was not perfectly in a detent. In my case, this happened as I was pulling the camera out of the sling bag, which I have over full at all times.

Others have found the same thing, I discovered. All four e-dials need to be firmly in the detent position or strange things happen.

madbrain · 06-29-2009, 06:22 PM

Hi,

Originally posted by Canada_Rockies

One other thought just came to mind, madbrain - I have personally experienced (again the k10 disclaimer, of course) that the camera just ignored me when one of the grip e-dials was not perfectly in a detent. In my case, this happened as I was pulling the camera out of the sling bag, which I have over full at all times.

Others have found the same thing, I discovered. All four e-dials need to be firmly in the detent position or strange things happen.

Well, there are no e-dials on the D-BG3 grip for the K200D. Only an on/off switch with the shutter button, and an AE-L button.

I'm still not convinced that the problem had anything to do with the grip or battery.

**Canada_Rockies** · 06-29-2009, 08:21 PM

Originally posted by madbrain

Hi,

Well, there are no e-dials on the D-BG3 grip for the K200D. Only an on/off switch with the shutter button, and an AE-L button.

I'm still not convinced that the problem had anything to do with the grip or battery.

Bummer. I wish we could have found the simple solution for you.

06-28-2009, 10:58 PM	#1
madbrain Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,341	My K200D let me down today While shooting the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade. The camera locked up - no buttons were responding anymore. The top LCD display was frozen too. On/off buttons to no avail. It took a friend about a minute to help me unscrew the battery grip from the camera, and for me to open the K200D battery compartment . I just removed the batteries and put them back in. The camera started again. I didn't use the battery grip the rest of the shoot. Unfortunately, believe it or not, that one minute was the time that I had been waiting for the most during the 4-hour parade - asian-pacific islander groups. The hot guys were waving at me, and there was nothing I could shoot. So incredibly frustrating. To be fair, the camera worked fine for the other 240+ minutes of the parade. I was shooting a lot, about 1200 pictures, or one every 12 seconds on average. And I shot another hundred after the parade. I am still reviewing all the shots. I will add a few to this thread once I figure out how. Edit: I figured it out. Astute viewers will recognize out gay lieutenant Dan Choi in the first picture. And the kid in the next-to-last picture was watching the parade from the window, and completely unaware he was being shot. The weather was the greatest I have ever seen in SF. Completely clear sky, perfect temperature. Most of my photos came out very vivid and colorful. I am looking for a new picture host since ovi will no longer show large picture sizes as it used to ... Last edited by madbrain; 06-15-2012 at 12:36 AM.

06-29-2009, 12:02 AM	#3
madbrain Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,341 Original Poster	Hi, Originally posted by rawr Great photos. Thanks ! Quote: Pity about the camera problem. So what do you think caused the lockup? Overheating of the sensor or some other internal circuitry? Maybe the one minute break to reload the batteries was enough to cool it down a bit. I wish I knew for sure. It was about 80-85F outside, great weather, but not overly hot. I was in the shade and so was the camera. I think it's more likely some bug in the firmware than anything else. I have one picture file that cannot be read (invalid JPEG) which makes me think the powering off the battery interrupted the saving of that file. Maybe the camera got into an infinite loop doing the JPEG compression ? Just a software engineer's guess. Anyway, I have never seen this happen before with the K200D. I sure hope it never does again ! Quote: Have a look into the EXIF of the photo's taken just prior to the lockup. Buried in the EXIF for the K200D is the camera temperature at the time the photo was taken, probably at a location near the sensor. That might reveal something. Thanks, I will check. Quote: Or maybe there was some crud on one of the the battery contacts? Well, with the battery grip, it's always a possibility. I have some issues with all the pins not making contact before. But today I checked that everything was ok and screwed it in tightly. I actually used the vertical grip button to shoot. And I had the battery setting to "auto". I am not sure which batteries were used first. Anyway, what I can tell you is that when I just disconnected the battery grip, it wasn't enough to reset the camera. I had to open the camera's battery compartment to power it off and reset it. Then it started again just fine. By the time the problem happened, I had already taken about 800 shots. Edit: the corrupt file, IMGP8256.JPG is actually 0 bytes. So I won't be able to gather any data from it. I don't see anything wrong with the preceding picture - it looks like a good picture. Do you know how I can get at the temperature EXIF data ? Last edited by madbrain; 06-15-2012 at 12:36 AM.

06-29-2009, 01:30 AM	#5
madbrain Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,341 Original Poster	Originally posted by rawr Re the temperature EXIF, if you are on Windows visit PhotoME - Exif, IPTC & ICC Metadata Editor and download their excellent freeware EXIF viewer and editor. The open up one of your JPG or RAW file and look under the 'Manufacturer's Notes' section - there is an entry there below 'Image Processing Count' for 'Camera Temperature'. It is usually quite a bit higher than ambient temperature, I've noticed. Thanks ! It was 35°C for the last picture before the problem. I would think that's within specs. Quote: One simple solution to your problem BTW, as used by the pros, is to carry 2 or more cameras with you on an important shoot When one dies, instantly swap over to another. Yeah. I know of that solution I'm not a pro. I never dreamed my camera would die, let alone at that particular instant. That's why I had a 16GB SDHC card, loads of batteries, external flash (for subjects in the shade), and a battery grip. The 2 camera solution is expensive. At least if the 2nd camera is a DSLR. It is also too heavy / too large for me. My only other camera is a Canon P&S A590IS. It takes pictures so slowly that it would have been useless in this situation. And the pictures it manages to take are very grainy. I positively cannot stand that camera. The only good thing I can say about it is that it's better than my cell phone camera ... Quote: Also: need more photos of cute guys. That I can do . Last edited by madbrain; 06-15-2012 at 12:36 AM.

06-29-2009, 03:41 PM	#12
madbrain Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,341 Original Poster	Hi, Originally posted by Canada_Rockies I use a k10d, so this might not be pertinent to your situation, but on the other hand, it might. I have observed that when the grip battery fails - I have the camera set to use the grip battery first - I must turn off and on the camera to have the camera actually switch to the camera battery. There is at least one other post in this forum somewhere that observed the same thing. I set my camera to grip first, so that I can recharge the grip battery while continuing to shoot with the camera battery, and replace the grip batter later. I have no evidence that it was a power/battery issue at all so far. There was still a display on the top LCD - ISO, f number, speed. It was just completely frozen. If the camera had lost power, than that would have disappeared. The back LCD was showing black. To me, it just looked like the camera was stuck - some firmware bug, or doing some very long internal processing. I can't really explain it. FYI, my camera still powers fine with the camera batteries, and shows half charge on top. I just swapped them for the grip batteries. It shows full charge. I just put the original camera batteries back in the camera, and it now shows low charge. I also connected the grip. The setup menu show low charge for the camera battery, and full charge (green) for the grip battery. Of course, the battery charge indicator on the K200D is often not very accurate, but at least I know the batteries are still OK. Keep in mind that I was able to shoot 500 more pictures after the incident, after I removed the battery grip. I think it's possible that the grip batteries were not used at all during my entire shoot. Since I was shooting so fast, I hardly used the back LCD for picture review. I simply did not have time. My finger went right back on the shutter button, and focus will turn off the LCD instantly. The LCD is the power hungry part of the camera. I am going to discharge both sets of batteries in my MAHA C 9000 to see how much charge remains in them. I expect not too much in the set that was in the camera, and a good charge in the set that was in the grip. I will report here later. Edit: the starting voltage is pretty low in the eneloops that were in the camera : 1.06V, 1.11V, 1.05V and 1.04V . But they are still good enough to power the K200D, amazingly. Though the battery indicator shows low charge. I'm discharging at 500 mA . I expect it won't be too long before they are depleted. Edit2: the discharge on that set finished with 36 mA, 121 mA, 33 mA, and 97 mA remaining in each battery respectively. Edit3: I started discharging the second set, from the grip, also at 500 mA. The battery voltage was 1.19V, 1.17V, 1.19V and 1.20V. Since the normal voltage for NiMH (even eneloops) is 1.20V, this is typical of near full-charge batteries. Edit4: I reviewed the EXIF data of a few random files that I shot yesterday with PhotoME, before I took out the grip. If I believe the data, then they were all taken with the "Body battery". So, I think I just got 1300 shots on one set of eneloops yesterday. And it wasn't a freshly charged set, either. I had taken about 100 pictures earlier this month on that same set. I think it was charged during the last week of may or early june. The first pictures taken with the set were on June 8. So, it looks like I got about 1400 shots total on one set of eneloops. That must be some kind of record ! I wish PhotoMe could give me the stats on how many were without flash, built-in flash or external flash. I know not too many were with the built-in flash, just a few. I did not change the other 4 eneloops in my flash this month, either Edit5 : the grip batteries discharge came in at 1642, 1653, 1659, 1630 mAh respectively. I would have expected a bit more. Maybe some of the individual shots were done with the grip after all. I didn't check the EXIF of all 800 shots that I took with the grip on. To be back on-topic ... I'm still upset about the camera freezing up. Last edited by madbrain; 06-30-2009 at 01:50 AM.

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06-28-2009, 11:52 PM	#2
rawr Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 11,913	Great photos. Pity about the camera problem. So what do you think caused the lockup? Overheating of the sensor or some other internal circuitry? Maybe the one minute break to reload the batteries was enough to cool it down a bit. Have a look into the EXIF of the photo's taken just prior to the lockup. Buried in the EXIF for the K200D is the camera temperature at the time the photo was taken, probably at a location near the sensor. That might reveal something. Or maybe there was some crud on one of the the battery contacts?

06-29-2009, 01:12 AM	#4
rawr Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 11,913	Re the temperature EXIF, if you are on Windows visit PhotoME - Exif, IPTC & ICC Metadata Editor and download their excellent freeware EXIF viewer and editor. The open up one of your JPG or RAW file and look under the 'Manufacturer's Notes' section - there is an entry there below 'Image Processing Count' for 'Camera Temperature'. It is usually quite a bit higher than ambient temperature, I've noticed. One simple solution to your problem BTW, as used by the pros, is to carry 2 or more cameras with you on an important shoot When one dies, instantly swap over to another. Also: need more photos of cute guys.

06-29-2009, 01:33 AM	#6
Damn Brit Guest	I suggest you start a new thread in Post Your Photos for the pictures, that would be more appropriate. More people will see them there as well. I was there as well, didn't get to see the parade but I was wandering around in front of the Civic Center for a couple of hours and took some pics. If you want to start that thread, I'll probably add to it (if you don't mind). Maybe there were some other members there as well who want to join in. BTW, mark the title NSFW to keep people happy and in their jobs.

06-29-2009, 01:43 AM	#7
madbrain Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,341 Original Poster	Good idea. I tried to post there. But now the forum software won't let me because the photos are already posted here. I bet I can fool it with some minor EXIF edits with Photome to repost them. Hmm, that didn't work, but something else did. The new thread is at : https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/64730-san-francisco-2009...-pictures.html And no, I don't mind you joining the thread at all I forgot to put NSFW in the title inadvertedly. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the forum will let me edit the thread title. I hope nobody loses their job, there is no full nudity in any of the pictures. Originally posted by Damn Brit I suggest you start a new thread in Post Your Photos for the pictures, that would be more appropriate. More people will see them there as well. I was there as well, didn't get to see the parade but I was wandering around in front of the Civic Center for a couple of hours and took some pics. If you want to start that thread, I'll probably add to it (if you don't mind). Maybe there were some other members there as well who want to join in. BTW, mark the title NSFW to keep people happy and in their jobs. Last edited by madbrain; 06-29-2009 at 02:06 AM.

06-29-2009, 03:59 AM	#8
Damn Brit Guest	I've edited the title for you.

06-29-2009, 12:21 PM	#9
PinarelloOnly Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Shoreline CT Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 86	Originally posted by madbrain While shooting the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade. The camera locked up - no buttons were responding anymore. The top LCD display was frozen too. On/off buttons to no avail. It took a friend about a minute to help me unscrew the battery grip from the camera, and for me to open the K200D battery compartment . I just removed the batteries and put them back in. The camera started again. I didn't use the battery grip the rest of the shoot. .. Never had that problem or even read about your problem using lithiums. Were you using Eneloops with your grip I wonder....

06-29-2009, 01:06 PM	#10
madbrain Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,341 Original Poster	Originally posted by PinarelloOnly Never had that problem or even read about your problem using lithiums. Were you using Eneloops with your grip I wonder.... Yes, I had 4 eneloops in the camera and 4 eneloops in the grip. Neither set was recharged recently (probably a month ago), but that's the whole point of eneloops. I checked the EXIF information about battery status in the shot before the problem occurred, and it reported that both the grip and camera batteries were OK . And it was operating on camera battery, not grip battery. Which explains why I had to open the camera's battery compartment to power it off.

06-29-2009, 03:10 PM	#11
Canada_Rockies Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sparwood, BC, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,385	Originally posted by madbrain Yes, I had 4 eneloops in the camera and 4 eneloops in the grip. Neither set was recharged recently (probably a month ago), but that's the whole point of eneloops. I checked the EXIF information about battery status in the shot before the problem occurred, and it reported that both the grip and camera batteries were OK . And it was operating on camera battery, not grip battery. Which explains why I had to open the camera's battery compartment to power it off. I use a k10d, so this might not be pertinent to your situation, but on the other hand, it might. I have observed that when the grip battery fails - I have the camera set to use the grip battery first - I must turn off and on the camera to have the camera actually switch to the camera battery. There is at least one other post in this forum somewhere that observed the same thing. I set my camera to grip first, so that I can recharge the grip battery while continuing to shoot with the camera battery, and replace the grip batter later.

06-29-2009, 03:47 PM	#13
Canada_Rockies Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sparwood, BC, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,385	One other thought just came to mind, madbrain - I have personally experienced (again the k10 disclaimer, of course) that the camera just ignored me when one of the grip e-dials was not perfectly in a detent. In my case, this happened as I was pulling the camera out of the sling bag, which I have over full at all times. Others have found the same thing, I discovered. All four e-dials need to be firmly in the detent position or strange things happen.

06-29-2009, 06:22 PM	#14
madbrain Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,341 Original Poster	Hi, Originally posted by Canada_Rockies One other thought just came to mind, madbrain - I have personally experienced (again the k10 disclaimer, of course) that the camera just ignored me when one of the grip e-dials was not perfectly in a detent. In my case, this happened as I was pulling the camera out of the sling bag, which I have over full at all times. Others have found the same thing, I discovered. All four e-dials need to be firmly in the detent position or strange things happen. Well, there are no e-dials on the D-BG3 grip for the K200D. Only an on/off switch with the shutter button, and an AE-L button. I'm still not convinced that the problem had anything to do with the grip or battery.

06-29-2009, 08:21 PM	#15
Canada_Rockies Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sparwood, BC, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,385	Originally posted by madbrain Hi, Well, there are no e-dials on the D-BG3 grip for the K200D. Only an on/off switch with the shutter button, and an AE-L button. I'm still not convinced that the problem had anything to do with the grip or battery. Bummer. I wish we could have found the simple solution for you.