Hills of Nottingham
New member
Is there a way of locking up the mirror on a D3200 so that you can take sharper pictures of a tripod?
Mirror lockup on D3200?
- Thread starter Hills of Nottingham
- Start date
Hills of Nottingham
New member
Thanks, but it seems that if a select LV (Live view) the mirror still moves up and down when I take the picture. even when I use a remote IR trigger. I want the mirror to lock up and stay up.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
I think you are mistaken.
In Live View mode, the mirror has to be up, and the shutter open, to expose the sensor in order to produce the live view. When you take the picture, the shutter closes, then opens and closes for the specified time to expose the picture, then a short time later, opens again and restores the live view. The mirror stays up the entire time.
I have just now verified this behavior with my own D3200.
If you set your Mode dial to “M”, you can remove the lens, and observe the mirror yourself as you actuate it in Live Mode. You will see that the mirror is up, and that it stays up.
In D3300 there is no mirror lock up. Further when shooting still (in contrast to video) in live view, the sequence is
. Mirror down
. Mirror up
. Shutter fires
. Mirror up
I have checked this both in the manual and in the camera. Every time a shot is taken in Live View, the shutter count goes up by 2. There may be many reasons for this, but what I think is that the AF in D3xxx and D5xxx works only with the module in the view finder and not off the sensor, so the camera has to release the mirror for AF, whether you need it or not, or may be that is a feature disabled to encourage users to buy a "Higher" model at a higher price. In the same vein there is no auto bracketing, a feature that requires software only.
. Mirror down
. Mirror up
. Shutter fires
. Mirror up
I have checked this both in the manual and in the camera. Every time a shot is taken in Live View, the shutter count goes up by 2. There may be many reasons for this, but what I think is that the AF in D3xxx and D5xxx works only with the module in the view finder and not off the sensor, so the camera has to release the mirror for AF, whether you need it or not, or may be that is a feature disabled to encourage users to buy a "Higher" model at a higher price. In the same vein there is no auto bracketing, a feature that requires software only.
Last edited:
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
The shutter count is based on how many times the shutter opens and closes,not on the mirror going up and down.
The shutter count goes up by 2 for every shot taking in Live Mode because the shutter has to be open (and the mirror up) for the camera to even see the live view; and when the shot is taken, the shutter closes, the opens and closes to take the shot, then opens again to restore live view. Two open/close sequences to take one picture.
On the D3200, at least, in Live Mode, autofocus is based on the main image sensor, rather than on the autofocus sensors in the viewfinder. That's why the autofocus modes are different in Live View than in normal view.
from the sounds i can tell that it release the mirror, wait half or 1 second, then again pull mirror up, and take picture, then release it again, and again pull it up and goes to live view... it's obviouse that nikon didn't wanted this version to have this ability at all, they tried to create this complexity not to provide feature, but to say you eat for what you pay for...
Another option to help with camera shake on a tripod since mirror up is not an option is to set in the custom menus a Delay before the shutter fires. I think the D3X00 has this option. On the D5300 it is Custom menu item C3 (Self Timer Delay). Not sure if it will help you or not, but just another possible option.