Is this normal? (D70)

I was shooting some pics today and during a pause the camera hung up on me.
Wouldn't do anything, including turn off. So, I popped the battery out and
back in and it began working just fine. Is this fairly normal?

Thanks.

Sheldon

 

No, it hasn't happened in the 1+ year I've had mine. Not even once. (But I
have seen one or two people post about this problem before...and they did
the same thing you did to get it operational again.)

 

Never happened to my D70... my other cameras used to do that all the time!

 

Hmmm. I guess I should just take a wait-see for now. It's only happened
once.

 

Did they mention how often it used to happen? This is the first time for
me. Camera is about three months old, so I've got plenty of time on the
warranty if this becomes a regular event.

Sheldon

 

Normal, no. Possible, yes. As with any processor-based electronics,
sometimes they just get stupid and have to be re-booted.

D.

 

[ ... ]

Nor has it happened to mine -- and I am coming up on about a
year of ownership with a lot of use.

How old is your camera?

What firmware versions are you currently using? (Have you
upgraded the firmware from what your camera had when you got it?) (Note
that were are pretty close to the release date for the firmware upgrade
to add most of the new features of the D70s (other than ones which
require hardware modification). I'm looking forward to that.

What was the state of charge of the battery when it happened?
Was it nearly ready for replacement with a freshly-charged one?

Was the camera bounced or jarred just before it happened? (E.g.
is it possible that power went away for a fraction of a second -- long
enough to confuse the CPU, but not long enough to cause it to reboot?)

Note that there is the reset button on the bottom of the camera --
almost invisible -- for situations like this. You would probably have
to go through and restore all of your custom settings if you did this.
I have not yet needed to use that particular button.

Just some considerations.

Good Luck,
DoN.

 

"Go stupid"? Really? I would say that all computer programs have bugs,
including control programs built-into the hardware. Nothing goes stupid.

 

Never happened to me -- the first thing I'd check is to see if the battery
contacts are "dirty". If they are, clean them with a pencil eraser.

Norm

 

Three months.

Latest, but have not loaded the new one yet.

Battery had a good charge.

It was around my neck the whole time. Never been dropped or bumped.

I realize they put a reset button there for a reason, so maybe these things
just happen from time to time. I've had to reset my Palm a few times, and
I've had it a long time.

Thanks for the ideas.

Sheldon

 

Will do. Thanks.

 

You know, I just upgraded the firmware on my camera, and if I recall the
last time I checked the A and B may have been different before this last
upgrade. Maybe I only upgraded halfway the last time I did it? Now they
are both 2.0.

 

If your camera suddenly stops working, I think you should consider that a
defect. However, Nikon has just released a firmware update for the D70, so
I think that before sending it back to them for repair, you should wait for
the new firmware, install it, and see if the problem goes away.

 

That was normal. The previous release was 1.01A and 1.03B. Now it is
2.0.0A and 2.0.0B.

 

Well, the problem only happened once, and the cameras was fine after that.
I've already installed the firmware upgrade and no problems there either.

I had a Sony that acted up once, and when I called they gave me the choice
of sending it in for repair, or keeping it and they gave me an extended
warranty. Never had the same problem again.

 

Congratulations! I know 3 people who regularly use a D70 (and I've put
about 10k pictures through mine), and have never seen one freeze. They're
amazingly reliable. But obviously you found a bug in the firmware which
sent it into (probably) an infinite loop or munged some important
pointers.

Since everything in digital cameras these days is software controlled
(even the alleged off switch), the only way out of that state is to pull
the battery and put it back in, causing a real power off and on. I used
to have to do it every couple weeks on my DC4800 and Dimage 7. So it's
not normal that you caused it to happen, but it's 'normal' considering
that you managed it.