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Hi guys

I just went out to take a couple of shots and my D70s is playing up. When I press the shutter it sounds like the mirror lifts, view finder goes black, but the shutter does not release and the mirror stays up. My first thought was that I had set a long shutter speed, but no, I have tried up to 1/8000. If I press the shutter button a second time there is a sound like the shutter firing and the mirror drops. Between the first and the second press of the shutter button the lcd displays a flashing 'err' where the shutter speed is normally displayed. If the shutter release is pressed half way (as in auto focusing) there is the message 'r03' displayed on the lcd where the 'shots remaining' on the cf card is usually shown.

I have tried a different cf card, different lenses, different prgram setting, different shutter speeds, thrown it against the wall (just kidding), as well as using the reset button on the base of the camera. Nothing works.

The messages 'err' and 'r03' must mean something. Has any one had this problem before?

On the bright side, I just googled the error message and found that many people have had a circuit board replaced which fixed the problem. My camera is still under warranty, so it is off to the shop tommorrow.

Mixed emotions. Hate having it break , love that it is still in warranty , will miss it while it is away .

I've seen symptoms like this where the mirror ends up half-way. Taking the battery out, re-inserting it, and taking another shot resets it back to normal. But the next attempt to take a photo hits the same problem.

While there is at least one known failure mode in these cameras with these symptoms that involves serious work to fix, there's sometimes an easier option.
Are you using a fully-charged original Nikon battery? I've seen one 3rd-party generic battery that causes this symptom even when "fully" charged!

d70s with mirror lockup bonus


Hilarity aside hope your issue goes away magically.

Dave
My, now dead, Richo xr2s did this when the battery was flat, so I did think it may be a cause. However, the battery indicator on the D70s does show as fully charged but I will wack it on the charger and see what happens.

Olrac
I waved my magic wand, but it didn't fix it.

I had what sounds like the same problem with my D70 while on a dive. The camera worked fine at the surface but once I descended pressing the shutter resulted in error messages like the ones you describe. Mine corrected itself on its own and I suspect one of the buttons on my housing was slightly depressed and the increased pressure made it press the button on the camera (no idea which one).

Maybe you could try depressing each of the buttons on the camera in turn and make sure they all do what they should do.

I also get weird error messages if the card is not seated properly.

CraigVTR wrote:the battery indicator on the D70s does show as fully charged but I will wack it on the charger and see what happens.

In the example I'm thinking of, the 3rd-party battery showed every sign of being fully charged. The charger said it was happy, the D70 said it was happy, but when trying to take a photo the camera died.
Using a real Nikon battery solved the problem, so I suspect it's related to the battery's voltage behaviour under increased current load. It's possible an old Nikon battery might eventually behave in the same way.
Incidentally, this behaviour was noted with the same battery on three different D70 bodies!

Dave
The battery is a Nikon battery and is on the charger now. It is about 18 months old so it could be the problem, although in all other aspects the battery has performed fine.

ATJ
I have done a fair bit of button pressing already to see if it helped. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Craig, apologies in advance if I am stating the bloody obvious I've not touched a D70 before, so take this with the respect it probably deserves, but I know that on the D50, pressing the shutter release half way down will also show 'r03'. It just signifies, to the best of my understanding, how many photos you can take, before the buffer is full. (r03 when shooting RAW)

I.e. by design, and not an error message.

The "ERR" message indicates that the shutter have stuck on some stage, but the "R03" should mean the amount of buffer you have left in the camera.

By the way, how many shutter actuations have the camera gone through?

i had a similar problem with my d70, found out the shutter sequence motor was stuffed, cost $160ish to fix

Thanks guys. It would appear the 'r03' is the amount of buffer available, learn something new every day. Wow, with quality dropped back to jpeg basic it gives a buffer for 17 shots. I'll stick to raw.

It goes off to the doctor this morning, still in warranty, and I will update on what the problem is when it comes home.

Craig

Still at the doctor? Any news?