View finder dimm with some sort of grid

Tijs

Senior Member
Hi all,

Very sad to post again here with wat seems like another broken d3300.

Now i'm on holiday and was shooting pictures of the forest. All of a sudden the view finder is very dimm and there seems to be some sort of grid before it. I saw it happening, right after i exposed a picture the grid was their and the viewfinder dimmed.

The camera's light meter doesn't seem to function correctly now, and it over exposes every picture.

I read that a dimmed view finder mostly has to do with a drained battery, but i have two fully charged batteries that won't make a difference.

When changing to 'live view' mode, the screen looks ok, but light meter reports the subject is to dark. As i'm new to dslr i mostly shoot in A mode, and i can see that the camera wants a very long shutter time (like 1 or more seconds), even at f2.8

It also does not seem to be my lens (tamron 17-50 vc). I have only this one lens with me, but when i remove the lens and look through the viewfinder i can still see the grid vaguely, allthough the view is much brighter.

The grid looks not like a grid of straight lines but rather curved lines or cirkels, very weird.

I've never looked through my view finder without batteries, so i don't know it this is the same. But as i said, my two batteries are good.

Tried resetting the shooting menu and the setup menu, no change.

When camera is off, but lenscap removed, i see can also see the 'grid'.

Hopefully this is sometging stupid wich could easily be fixed, since i'm in argentina on a holiday. :)

Or it's me, because this camera is a two weeks old replacement of another d3300 that had a shuttercurtain malfunction within a week... Not much luck with this d3300 so far...

Hope someone has a good tip!
Tijs


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Last edited:

Tijs

Senior Member
Well of course i could not let it go and searched further. I now do think it might be the Tamron lens actually. When i dismount it and look through it I can only see a small opening ( like 0,5 cm ) and it's not 'even'. Like there's a small part of the circle cut off. So it seems the aperture blades are stuck maybe? That would explain what i saw, after taking a picture, the viewfinder suddenly was dimm. I actually wanted to take a picture with long shutter time, so the f stop was at maximum.
Hmm... Could it be humidity? It's not really humid hear in winter. Will try to leave it in my bag sith silicon bags overnight hopefully that helps


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nickt

Senior Member
Try to play with the aperture lever on the lens mount. Be gentle. Pushing the lever will close the lens down, releasing it should open the the aperture back up by spring. maybe it will unstick if you work it a few times. If you are not familiar, its a little tab that sicks out from the mount. If all else fails try tapping/banging the the lens to free it up. I wouldn't normally recommend that, but its broke anyway and it might get you through the trip.
 

Bob Blaylock

Senior Member
Re: View finder dim with some sort of grid

Well of course i could not let it go and searched further. I now do think it might be the Tamron lens actually. When i dismount it and look through it I can only see a small opening ( like 0,5 cm ) and it's not 'even'. Like there's a small part of the circle cut off. So it seems the aperture blades are stuck maybe? That would explain what i saw, after taking a picture, the viewfinder suddenly was dimm [sic]. I actually wanted to take a picture with long shutter time, so the f stop was at maximum.
Hmm... Could it be humidity? It's not really humid hear in winter. Will try to leave it in my bag sith [sic] silicon bags overnight hopefully that helps


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Try to play with the aperture lever on the lens mount. Be gentle. Pushing the lever will close the lens down, releasing it should open the the aperture back up by spring. maybe it will unstick if you work it a few times. If you are not familiar, its a little tab that sicks out from the mount. If all else fails try tapping/banging the the lens to free it up. I wouldn't normally recommend that, but its broke anyway and it might get you through the trip.

@nickt has it backward.

Assuming a “G”-type lens, without an aperture ring, the lens should be normally stopped down to its smallest aperture, when not mounted. If it's not a “G” lens, then it will be at whatever aperture is set on the aperture ring. Pressing upward on the linkage, circled in red on these pictures, should cause it to open all the way to its largest aperture.


CSC_2517zn.JPGCSC_2516zn.JPG

In normal operation, an SLR or DSLR holds that lever up, so that the aperture is wide open when you're looking through the viewfinder. In older SLRs, the camera would release that lever completely, when the picture was being taken, so that the aperture would close down to the setting selected on the aperture ring. Newer cameras with newer lenses release that lever only partially, using it to control how small the aperture is set.

Anyway, an obvious possible cause of your dim viewfinder would be a failure on the part of either the lens or the camera to open the aperture all the way for viewing. If you lift this lever all the way on the lens, and the aperture remains closed, then that's the problem; the lens is defective.
 

Tijs

Senior Member
Hi nick and bob, thanks for quick response.
The lens does indeed have a lever, but handling it does not change a thing sadly. My lens does not have an aperture ring, so it might be a g lens.

I'm leaving it with silicon bags over night.. To bad i have more than two weeks left in argentina. I might look for a cheap lens, but this stuff is hard to get in argentina, would have to go to paraguay but did not really plan to haha


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nickt

Senior Member
Hi nick and bob, thanks for quick response.
The lens does indeed have a lever, but handling it does not change a thing sadly. My lens does not have an aperture ring, so it might be a g lens.
That doesn't sound good. Sorry.
 

Bob Blaylock

Senior Member
Hi nick and bob, thanks for quick response.
The lens does indeed have a lever, but handling it does not change a thing sadly. My lens does not have an aperture ring, so it might be a g lens.

I'm leaving it with silicon bags over night.. To bad i have more than two weeks left in argentina. I might look for a cheap lens, but this stuff is hard to get in argentina, would have to go to paraguay but did not really plan to haha

If there's no aperture ring, then yes, this is a “G” lens. The aperture ring, on lenses that still have it, is an artifact from older days, when that was how you changed the aperture setting. In more modern applications, it is that lever that I indicated, that the camera uses to set the aperture. Originally, that lever was just intended to support the feature of holding the aperture all the way open for viewing, then letting it close down to take the picture.

In any event, if moving that lever upward does not cause the aperture to open up, then your lens is indeed defective.
 

aroy

Senior Member
To check if the lens is defective
. Switch the camera off
. Take the lens out
. Now look through the view finder
If it is bright, then the lens is the problem

In case the aperture does not move when the aperture tab is moved, then the lens mechanism may be jammed if the tab also does not move or broken if it moves.

Try and find a 35mm F1.8G DX or a 50mm F1.8G. Both sell between $150 and $200 each. Try and locate a camera repair shop (most major cities in the world have one) and they may have either of these lenses.
 

Tijs

Senior Member
Thanks for the replies. It was indeed the lens, i met another holidaymaker with nikon i could swap lenses with. Argentina has high taxes on electronics but i managed to find a way overpriced kitlens, but at least i could make some decent pictures again!

The tamron was only three weeks old so i'll return it for warranty when we get home.




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