Black Band At Top Of Photos

After two carefree and successful years with my D5100, I'm afraid I have my first problem. Starting today I have a black band appearing at the top of all of my pictures. I've attached a sample picture. Is my mirror getting stuck? Is this something I can fix (I'm a fairly handy guy) or is this best left to Nikon? Thank you.

It wouldn't be the mirror. Keep in mind that optically, the image hits your sensor upside-down.

If this is something casting a shadow on your sensor, it's casting it at the bottom edge, not the top. If the mirror was not quite flipping up far enough, it'd cast a shadow across the top of the sensor, which would appear at the bottom of your pictures.

I notice that the band is very jagged and uneven, which seems to me to suggest that whatever is causing it is some foreign object casting a shadow, as opposed to ay electronic issue.

It's a shutter issue, given the out of focus line and the angle. Can't tell you why, but it seems that the shutter isn't opening all the way or closing too quickly for you.

Yeah, Hippie nailed it, your shutter is going out. Having a shutter replaced costs ~$250 so hopefully you're still under warranty. Even though it's a fairly new camera the shutter can still fail well before its time. My D800 had a catastrophic failure at around 30k actuations and they had to replace the entire shutter box. Fortunately it was all covered under my warranty.

Arrrgh. Thanks for everyone's help. Looks like I have a significant expense coming up. I guess there are two good things that are apparent. One is that there is a Nikon authorized repair shop an hour or so away and second that the problem didn't develop during a vacation or special event. I didn't drop or bump the camera, so I guess it was a defective part.

I've owned my D5100 for almost two years. Does anyone know off the cuff what the warranty period is?

D7000 was 2 years, so I have to assume about the same. Some credit cards will extend manufacturer warranties by a year, so check that.

Oh, I thought of another question regarding repair shops. Would you send it to Nikon in Melville, NY or would you trust one of Nikon's authorized service centers? My authorized service center is Southern Photo Technical Service.

Thanks Ron -- I'll give it a shot. Nothing to lose trying.

I swapped lenses and put in a fresh battery just to run that route, but to no avail. Interestingly though, one random test shot out of a dozen was fine, while all of the others showed the black line, So, something is sticking or failing for sure.

Sandpatch said:

Oh, I thought of another question regarding repair shops. Would you send it to Nikon in Melville, NY or would you trust one of Nikon's authorized service centers? My authorized service center is Southern Photo Technical Service.

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Southern Photo Technical Service had my D5100 on and off, mostly on, for almost a month when I had my problem. I had the opposite of your problem. The image was in the top portion and the rest was black. They finally did clear up the problem, but I don't think I'll be using them again. I know some people had good luck with them.
http://nikonites.com/d5100/14326-did-my-d5100-run-out-film.html#axzz2f47r2tj7

As far a the warranty, mine was for one year. If I had American Express or Discover and used it, the warranty would have been two years.

Thanks for your post Marilynne. I looked around on the Internet and found some customer reviews of my Southern Photo Technical Service and found that they did good work, but they took forever to make a fix. So, I think I'll ship mine to Nikon in New York if Ron's technique with the air puffer doesn't reverse my problem.

Hi Ron,

I tried the mirror lock and blower, but no soap. Oh well, no harm done. Nikon's website offers a repair form and packet, but it's buggy and won't work. I'll phone them tomorrow and get things rolling. I'll really miss my D5100. I hope they turn it around quickly and I hope the repair cost isn't ridiculously high.

Sandpatch said:

Hi Ron,

I tried the mirror lock and blower, but no soap. Oh well, no harm done. Nikon's website offers a repair form and packet, but it's buggy and won't work. I'll phone them tomorrow and get things rolling. I'll really miss my D5100. I hope they turn it around quickly and I hope the repair cost isn't ridiculously high.

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You can always get a "backup" camera while you wait like my husband suggested I do - the D7100!

Vent Follows! The factory service application area of Nikon's website is buggy (won't work at home or at work), so I phoned Nikon this morning. The representative suggested that I quit using Micosoft Explorer and use Firefox, to which I responded that I wasn't going to upload a second browser just to communicate with Nikon. Sheeesh.

Then the questions began, suggesting that it could be both of my lenses (not), my memory card (not), that I needed to reset the camera (not) and on through her prescribed list of questions as if I'm an idiot owner. She did want me to send them some sample photos, which I can understand. I began to repeat again and again that the shutter is the likely culprit, but there was never any affirmation or acceptance of my thought. She probably has no idea what a shutter does.

All in all, it was a surprisingly frustrating experience. You'd think that a telephone representative would quickly pick up on educated owners and skip all of the time-consuning hoodoo.

If they insist that I use their defective website and drag me through more delay and misery, I'll give up and take it to Southern Photo Technical Service and hope for the best.

Try clearing your cache and see if that doesn't remove the bug problem you're having. That said, if you bought your camera at a dedicated camera store you can generally take your camera to them and they'll do all the shipping, etc. I like this option because it saves you the cost of shipping and insurance.

I'll try that Dave -- thank you. Meanwhile, I made some progress with Nikon this afternoon after their service website magically came to life and operated correctly. I now have a service packet. I e-mailed them two photos for service appraisal and will await their word.

If it goes for repair, I hope I get it back quickly. Upon buying my D5100, I have started a tradition of taking one vacation day each fall to take train pictures (my favorite subject matter). I was looking forward to my 3rd Annual Trip and hope I can make it happen.

Sandpatch said:

...I have started a tradition of taking one vacation day each fall to take train pictures (my favorite subject matter). I was looking forward to my 3rd Annual Trip and hope I can make it happen.

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Fall goes until December 20, hopefully you'll have your camera back by then.

Sandpatch said:

Vent Follows! The factory service application area of Nikon's website is buggy (won't work at home or at work), so I phoned Nikon this morning. The representative suggested that I quit using Micosoft Explorer and use Firefox, to which I responded that I wasn't going to upload a second browser just to communicate with Nikon. Sheeesh.

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If they insist that I use their defective website and drag me through more delay and misery, I'll give up and take it to Southern Photo Technical Service and hope for the best.

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Not that it's otherwise terribly relevant to your problems, but if you're using Internet Explorer, and trying to access a web site that seems to behave badly, then it is almost certain that the problem is not the website. Internet Explorer is, and always has been, a seriously defective web browser. Microsoft has never been shy about trying to force its own ideas about how the WWW should work, on a world that had already accepted standards that are very much out of line with Microsoft's defective ideas.

That sort of incompatibility is actually among the least of the reasons to never, ever, under any circumstances, use Internet Explorer for any web site that doesn't actually require it.

Consider Microsoft's own Windows Update web site, wherein Internet Explorer is used to download and install updates to the operating system itself. Think about what this means. The same web browser you're using to visit all other sorts of web sites has the ability to download and install low-level changes to your operating system. is it any wonder that Windows has always been such an easy and open target for all manner of destructive malware?

In any event, it really is not fair to describe any web site as “defective” until you first try using it via a web browser that isn't a complete and utter piece of garbage. It's possible that the part of Nikon's web site that you're trying to use really is defective, but there's no way to know that if you only use Internet Explorer to try to access it.

Bob Blaylock said:

... In any event, it really is not fair to describe any web site as “defective” until you first try using it via a web browser that isn't a complete and utter piece of garbage. It's possible that the part of Nikon's web site that you're trying to use really is defective, but there's no way to know that if you only use Internet Explorer to try to access it.

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Interestingly, Nikon's service website came to life several hours after my call and worked just fine. I suspect that my call might have precipitated action in their IT Department. The problem was indeed theirs and not the browser.

As a result, I now have my Service Packet in hand and my D5100 travels to Long Island tomorrow. I e-mailed Nikon some photos last night and they agreed that there's a problem and that they need see only the camera body and nothing else. Cool. Hopefully they'll fix it properly and I can get back to having fun.

Marilynne said:

Fall goes until December 20, hopefully you'll have your camera back by then.

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Hopefully I'll have it back in time to catch some fall colors. If not, I can borrow my wife's Nikon Coolpix P100 which takes excellent pictures, though I think I'd have more fun with her Nikon N75 35mm (c. 2004) where I can rekindle my love for the world of film that I just left two years ago. I removed the battery from the N75 and keep it safely stored in an air conditioned closet, so it's ready for action if needed.