58 replies to this topic

[Alex_Tattersall]

My experience of the issue is the same as Alex’s, no obvious pattern, just once in a while you’d get the hourglass instead of the image you’ve just taken. You can take another photo in the meantime but the hourglass stays. I end up then switching it on and off and it clears itself.

[adamhanlon]

Just to be clear on this folks, this is not about buffers! It occurs whether you have taken one shot or a series, and occurs randomly.

It happened to me today with a fully charged battery.

[tdpriest]

It's not happened to me in 13 days of continuous shooting (tho' I've a sticky shutter release and a depressing tendency to change my settings unexpectedly with the sub-command wheel...).

Shannon Conway has had it happen, but not (I think) last week.

I'm impressed by a battery lasting for a week by the way: four dives was the most that I got...

Edited by tdpriest, 07 December 2012 - 04:24 AM.

[Alex_Tattersall]

PMed you Tim!

[kmsellin]

I have had the same problem with my D800. I can´t find any special reason. But what I have notice is at for me it only happends when I have to cards in the camara. (one CF, one SD). With only the SD card I have not had this problem so far. Have to try more with just SD card to be sure.

[Alex_Tattersall]

Well, I received my camera back from Nikon UK with diagnosis of ‘No Fault Found, may be card problem but testing not possible as card not supplied’.

I was told by Nikon that when I return it I should not include the card or the battery, so that was nice.

[Gary.Makai]

I have had the "hourglass" intermittently on my d800E both above and below the surface. Running latest firmware, lexar 1000x cards (mostly 32gb occasionally a 15 or a 64GB. Turning the camera off and then on clears the problem and allows reshooting. This can happen with single shots or bursts.

[John Bantin]

The Swedish two-card syndrome might be the explanation. I only got it for the first time on my last trip when I had two cards in the camera.

[adamhanlon]

Hi folks,

I am in contact with Nikon UK about this.

A soon as I have any comments from them, I will post here. In the meantime though, if anyone else is having the problem, or has any suggestions, I would love to hear about them

All the best

Adam

[Drew]

Unfortunately, this is an intermittent problem and cannot be immediately repeatable. I suspect this is a card compatibility issue. If it were a camera issue, it'd be more repeatable. I just gave up on the D800 but never had the issue other than earlier when it first came out.

[adamhanlon]

It is fairly repeatable on my camera!

I disagree, the number of folks above who are having the issue with a wide variety of card types, must mean this is a camera issue. Please note that the problem occurs when shooting single frames, often as the first frame when the camera has not been "active" for a while-it is not related to write speeds in burst modes.

Let's see what Nikon say.

Adam

[Alex_Tattersall]

Adam, did you see my post above?, NIKON UK told me there was no fault with my camera and returned it to me.

[Drew]

I'm guessing this could be a related issue which I read about back in May:

http://www.pdnonline...ing--5632.shtml

Alex, DPReview did mention it in several threads:

http://forums.dprevi.../thread/3183623

http://forums.dprevi.../thread/3190131

http://forums.dprevi.../thread/3237449

http://forums.dprevi...s/post/50371875

The consensus seems to indicate it's the cards, especially the SD cards. Has anyone tried using the CF card only?

[adamhanlon]

Hi Alex-not prejudging what will happen, but there is Nikon UK and then there is Nikon UK! By avoiding going through the retail chain, I am in contact with Nikon technical direct,

Adam

[Alex_Mustard]

I am sure I always had a SD card in slot 2 when I had the problem.

[Alex_Tattersall]

Nice one Adam, tell them on my behalf then that I could do with a Nikon D600 please

[John Bantin]

I have been using the CF card only until my last trip when I added a 16Gb SDHC card for overflow and guess what? I had the problem for the first time!

[Drew]

I can't try it now that I sold my D800. But if people try SD only and CF only and see if they can replicate the issue. Also another issue is which card.

[John Bantin]

No issues with any make of CF card up to 16GB (all I have). However, ocasional issue when 16GB SDHC card in slot 2, usually when writing to that card after CF is full, if I remember rightly. I hope this helps.

Edited by John Bantin, 24 December 2012 - 04:14 AM.

[E_viking]

This seems like a "classic" interrupt Issue/problem. It generally seems to happen intermittent out of the blue!
The Processor is busy with someother task and suddenly a higher order interrupt comes, which create problems.
Generally, the workaround is a time out or a a reboot.
I could imagine that there is a collision of the interupts of the 2 cards. Hence, by only using 1 card the problem is reduced or gone.

These type of problems are a pain to debug. Since, the main problem is to find out under exact which circumstance the problem occurs.