Deja vu, all over again

Going to make this short and sweet. I got my replacement D500 from B&H yesterday. Put in a battery, slapped on the 300mm f4 PF, set all my menu settings (including making sure my image review and menu screen timeouts were all 10 seconds), and went out shooting birds off the deck. About 100 frames in I shot some of a private jet that buzzed overhead closer than one would have expected. I pixel peeped, smiled at the sharpness, and set the camera on the table next to me to talk to my wife about something. Two minutes later I look over and the back display is still on.

Again!!

WTF?! So I start pondering what I could be doing that causes the issue, because no one else on the planet has reported it anywhere I've looked, and it's happened to me out of the box not once but twice. The one constant in both cases is a particular SanDisk Extreme Pro 32GB 95MB/s SD card that I put in the first D500 as soon as I got it and kept it in there after getting a Sony XQD card a week later. So, I decide to remove that card and replace it with the same type of card that I have in my D750. I swap cards, reformat both and continue shooting. No issues.

That is until this morning when I go out to shoot a dragon fly on a plant on the deck. Immediately after chimping the screen stays. No lock, just on until I give any other non-review related button a press. Again, same exact card type, probably from the same 2-pk.

So, it's time to play Sherlock Holmes again. I'm no longer of the mind that this is a camera issue, at least directly. I know the D500 had issues with other memory cards that caused it to lock up completely, and at least I'm not experiencing that. But perhaps this is a different issue with this particular card?

The card is now completely removed from the body and I'll be shooting with the XQD card only (Sony G series 64GB 400MB/s) and we'll see if it behaves properly.

My question to you all is are any of you using the same SD card as I am? Are any of you using the same type but a different size (16GB, etc.)? I've got other SD cards I can play with, and I'll start using others when I decide that I don't get the problem with the XQD card alone.

Hi Jake,
I use a pair of SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s cards in my D7100, except mine are 16Gb's - I have never had a problem.

One thing that springs to mind - Aren't some of the settings stored on the card? I know I can totally wipe a card, pop it in the camera and it gets an extra hidden folder written to it by the camera... If you are moving the cards between cameras are you formatting in between?

Thanks, Steve. I'm really only looking for D500 owners. I've used these particular cards in every Nikon I've owned. Not just the type, but these two cards, and never had an issue.

I use the Format Card option to delete the images on the card, so technically it should remove anything else on there, and yes, I reformatted these cards when I first put them in and again when I swapped. That said, I may stick them in my MacBook card slot and do an Erase Data run on them to see if there's not something weird on there that might be causing it.

And FYI, I heard back from Thom Hogan who has said that he uses the same exact cards and hasn't had any issues.

So, if it continues with or without the SD card then I'm down to something in my customized menu settings, which for the curious and experimental are (this includes everything I adjusted from factory default)...

PLAYBACK:
- All Playback Display Options checked except for None (image only)
- After Delete is Continue As Before
- After Burst is First Image In Burst
SHOOTING:
- Custom file name prefix set
- Image Quality RAW
- ISO sensivity set to 100 w/ Auto ISO On, max 12800, AUTO min shutter speed one click to Faster
- WB on AUTO1
- All JPEG related adjustments (High ISO NR, Vignette Control, etc.) to OFF
CUSTOM
- a8 : OFF
- c4 : Playback 10s - Menus 20s - Information Display 10s - Image Review 4s - Live View 4m
- d1 : 7fps
- d3 : ON
- f2 : Playback Zoom to 100%
SETUP
- Language English
- Time zone and date set for New York, M/D/Y, with DST OFF
- Monitor Brightness +2
- Copyright Information ON
- Airplane mode ON

I know you only want to here from D500 users but I will share this anyway.

When I first got my D7200 I had the problem you describe I think... after a shot the image review would not time out. I was using the cards that I had used in my D3200... I could not figure out the cause. Like you all my timers were set at default. Finally I went to the "play back" menu and turning off "Image Review" and making it a manual process if I wanted to check my image. That worked for me.

I have since upgraded my cards to Lexar Cards that are on the approved list for my camera. This morning, after reading these couple posts, I turned "Image Review" back on and it is not timing out at 10 seconds.

Again, turning off the review worked fine for me and really saved battery life and I broke ME of the habit I had of checking every shot, which was good for ME... but now it seems to be working properly with it turned on.

Just thought I would share. Wish you the best in your quest Jake.

That's strange, Dan, and it just shouldn't happen that way. I don't always chimp, but I certainly look when I'm dealing with birds in flight and anything where I have to ask myself, "Did I get it?!" Yes, turning it off may be an option, and I'd be curious to see if it works.

One symptom on the old D500 was that it also would occasionally get stuck displaying the Menu screen. That didn't happen as often, but it happened.

Good news is that I'm not worried about a "defective camera". If I can come up with something repeatable I'll pass it in. Interesting to know that others have experienced something similar on other cameras.

If you are talking solely about having a problem with the image review staying on with a different Nikon body, I too experienced this with my D7100. It happened on 2 or 3 different occasions--all while shooting drama productions. ISO was somewhere around 2000 to 2500, shutter generally between 1/15" to 1/125". RAW+jpeg. Most likely SanDisk cards as I don't think I ever used the Lexar cards in that body.

In all cases, the light green dot on the camera back stayed on, too, along with the images. I assume the light means it was writing to the card. The first time it happened, I waited and waited (minimum 10 seconds) then I gave the shutter a 1/2 press which made the camera focus. That turned it off each time. I never shoot in AF-C. I am always in AF-S. I can't remember if I took several shots in succession, but even if I did, since I was in AF-S with single point, there would have been at least one second between each image to lock focus...and never more than 3-4 images at once this way. Might have happened after taking just one image--can't remember.

Jake, I have a SanDisk Extreme Pro 32GB 95MB/s SD card. Just for grins I'll stick it in my D500. I'll let you know if anything strange happens.

Card is definitely not this issue. Shot with various different SD cards, with and without the XQD card, still happens occasionally. Danno & Hark's experiences with Image Review mentioned here on other bodies were echoed on other forums as well.

The impression I'm getting is that Nikon's Image Review function doesn't really work 100% correctly. So the answer I'm getting is the answer to the classic joke, "'Doctor, it hurts when I do this.' 'Then don't do that!'". I just don't find that a reasonable response, even if it's what works.

I'm going to keep playing, and I'm going to be thrilled with my D500, but I'm not going to be happy about this until Nikon fixes it cross the board.

Question for you, Jake--is there any way to change the length of time for image review? Doing a quick online search, I found this for the D7100. Says something about the Monitor Off Delay option allows changing the duration for the instant review. Just wondering if shortening the length of time for image review helps or not.

The screen shot below comes from this link.

BackdoorHippie said:

Card is definitely not this issue. Shot with various different SD cards, with and without the XQD card, still happens occasionally. Danno & Hark's experiences with Image Review mentioned here on other bodies were echoed on other forums as well.

The impression I'm getting is that Nikon's Image Review function doesn't really work 100% correctly. So the answer I'm getting is the answer to the classic joke, "'Doctor, it hurts when I do this.' 'Then don't do that!'". I just don't find that a reasonable response, even if it's what works.

I'm going to keep playing, and I'm going to be thrilled with my D500, but I'm not going to be happy about this until Nikon fixes it cross the board.

Click to expand...

Well Jake I was telling you things were all better... well they seem to be in most cases, save one. I put on my ole reliable Sigma 18-250 1:3.5-6.3 MACRO HSM lens on the camera last night. My wife Pat and I were going to town for supper and I like to have it on the camera because it is pretty versatile for kicking around.

Well when took a couple shots with it the review stayed on... I tried turning off OS but that made no difference. This morning I used my Sigma 10-20 f/3.5 to take a cloudscape and it worked. So I think you are right... Nikon's review function is a bit cantankerous... and it was not hurting me to leave it off. But it does make me a bit suspicious of some Sigma lenses. One worked one did not while all my other lenses worked fine, including my Tamron.

Just an FYI

Danno said:

Well Jake I was telling you things were all better... well they seem to be in most cases, save one. I put on my ole reliable Sigma 18-250 1:3.5-6.3 MACRO HSM lens on the camera last night. My wife Pat and I were going to town for supper and I like to have it on the camera because it is pretty versatile for kicking around.

Well when took a couple shots with it the review stayed on... I tried turning off OS but that made no difference. This morning I used my Sigma 10-20 f/3.5 to take a cloudscape and it worked. So I think you are right... Nikon's review function is a bit cantankerous... and it was not hurting me to leave it off. But it does make me a bit suspicious of some Sigma lenses. One worked one did not while all my other lenses worked fine, including my Tamron.

Just an FYI

Click to expand...

3rd party lenses are always questionable with newer Nikons, which is why I haven't even put my Sigma on this copy of the D500. It's just the 300mm f4 until I figure it out. For backyard birding that's more than enough.

Have you sent back the Sigmas for firmware upgrades since getting the D7200? I had to send back all of mine when I got the D750. I'm waiting a while before I send back anything so they can get everything sussed out with the D500. I can do the 150-600mm with the dock but the 105mm macro and 70-300mm macro need to go to them (these have obvious issues in Live View focusing, which I will use for macro). I haven't noticed an issue with the 15mm fish.

BackdoorHippie said:

3rd party lenses are always questionable with newer Nikons, which is why I haven't even put my Sigma on this copy of the D500. It's just the 300mm f4 until I figure it out. For backyard birding that's more than enough.

Have you sent back the Sigmas for firmware upgrades since getting the D7200? I had to send back all of mine when I got the D750. I'm waiting a while before I send back anything so they can get everything sussed out with the D500. I can do the 150-600mm with the dock but the 105mm macro and 70-300mm macro need to go to them (these have obvious issues in Live View focusing, which I will use for macro). I haven't noticed an issue with the 15mm fish.

Click to expand...

No I haven't sent them back, but that is an excellent point. Thank you.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Danno said:

No I haven't sent them back, but that is an excellent point. Thank you.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Give Sigma a call and they'll tell you specifically what to look for that they have fixed. They can't fix everything if Nikon has buggered it in their firmware, but if the lens has a functional defect it'll get fixed. They'll send you a return #, you pay to ship, they ship back, the rest is free.

So I got a little deeper into this today. Normally I'll leave things so my Image Review will immediately show the screen with all the shot EXIF, small preview and histogram. Today, when I experienced the issue, I just had it set to show me the basic preview screen and instead of showing the file information at the bottom I got a gray line. After zooming in and back out the file information appeared. The image review still remained on until I reset it but after that it was fine. No write/card active light was lit.



I'll be contacting Nikon and letting them know, and send them this information. Not sure if it will do anything, but it's another piece of the puzzle.

Jake i have an answer to your problem, i will send my trusty D7000 and take that problematic D500 off your hands, sounds pretty good for me... lol

just eager to help (ME) out.

Keep digging you will sort it out.

Man, that joke never gets old.

BackdoorHippie said:

So I got a little deeper into this today. Normally I'll leave things so my Image Review will immediately show the screen with all the shot EXIF, small preview and histogram. Today, when I experienced the issue, I just had it set to show me the basic preview screen and instead of showing the file information at the bottom I got a gray line. After zooming in and back out the file information appeared. The image review still remained on until I reset it but after that it was fine. No write/card active light was lit.

View attachment 217879

I'll be contacting Nikon and letting them know, and send them this information. Not sure if it will do anything, but it's another piece of the puzzle.

Click to expand...

Well, this is a hellava thing! What are the odds of the replacement camera having the same problems as the first one, especially when no one else seems to be experiencing this with the D500. (been following the thread over at the FM forums as well).

At first I was thinking that it may have been a hardware problem, like a loose wire connection or something, but it's looking more and more like a software issue.
I hope you figure it out!

Blacktop said:

Well, this is a hellava thing! What are the odds of the replacement camera having the same problems as the first one, especially when no one else seems to be experiencing this with the D500. (been following the thread over at the FM forums as well).

At first I was thinking that it may have been a hardware problem, like a loose wire connection or something, but it's looking more and more like a software issue.
I hope you figure it out!

Click to expand...

I seriously believe that I'm not the only one experiencing it, I'm probably the only one talking about it - and probably too much since some folks think I'm complaining when I'm really just sleuthing at this point, more in hope that if this is a firmware thing that we can get Nikon to address it. I love the camera and will live with this if I have to, whether I just let it happen or learn to live without Image Review being on.

Thom Hogan thought it might be an issue with the ribbon connection on the rear screen, but I'm not convinced, and on this body I know I haven't even unseated it yet. It's only ever happened to me shooting in Ch mode (10fps), but that's sort of why I got this camera, and it's not like I clogged the buffer (the image above is one of 2 in the burst).

BackdoorHippie said:

3rd party lenses are always questionable with newer Nikons, which is why I haven't even put my Sigma on this copy of the D500. It's just the 300mm f4 until I figure it out. For backyard birding that's more than enough.

Have you sent back the Sigmas for firmware upgrades since getting the D7200? I had to send back all of mine when I got the D750. I'm waiting a while before I send back anything so they can get everything sussed out with the D500. I can do the 150-600mm with the dock but the 105mm macro and 70-300mm macro need to go to them (these have obvious issues in Live View focusing, which I will use for macro). I haven't noticed an issue with the 15mm fish.

Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ComPpr0bniM

Maybe set it up like this guy as a starting point. Perhaps someone close to you has one of the these and you can compare how you've got the camera set up. This is looking like you are trying to make your camera divide by zero or resolve the meaning of life and it is coughing up a lugey.