Yellow substance leaking from flash housing D7000

Veritas

Senior Member
Hello, Hoping to become a Nikonite! I have had a lifelong love of photography starting with an old rangefinder 35mm camera my dad bought in Japan after WWII that I found thrown in a closet as a kid. I was an early adopter of digital cameras but have never had a DSLR camera body. Could not afford what I wanted, so waited... And recently decided to replace my Olympus Pen with a used D7000. Did a ton of research, looked at a lot of photos, read reviews. I read the manual twice before ordering the camera, watched a youtube video tutorials, researched glass the whole nine yards. Have even ordered a David Busch guide.

Anyway, thought I had won the lottery when I found a great condition, in the box body with only 7900 shutter activations on it which I verified as accurate. Spent a couple hours looking over the menus, changing settings. Want to start out in auto mode and will eventually use the priority modes, etc. I took shots in manual and auto settings and will confess am disappointed thus far, but with some tweaks those have improved as well. But every time the camera is in auto the flash pops up, and here is my concern. There is some sort of bright neon yellow substance or fluid--it almost seems like a viscous wD40, and it does not dry out--that keeps appearing at the seam where the flash attaches to the camera and forms a little pool at the edge around the built-in flash housing. At first I actually thought it was some sort of marker to use to attach accessories, but was wiping down the camera and it wiped off. However, it reappears instantly and it looks like it may have permanently stained the lens cover of the flash which is yellowish so am guessing this may not be new.

Having nothing to compare to and no single camera shop anywhere in under an hour plus drive, I am hoping someone on the forum can give me an idea what this might be. I just took some shots of white paper and am going to check for artifacts. The original user appears to have shot in RAW and had a number of customized short cuts on the camera, so maybe s/he just never noticed if they weren't using the flash? Maybe it was lubricant from using an accessory flash? Or is it a dreaded lubricant leak inside the camera body that is just finding its way out via this one seam, waiting to bedevil my work just as the return period expires? It was an Amazon marketplace purchase.

Near as I can tell the camera takes brilliant photos in manual but the autofocus pix are not focused at all. Recognizing that a lot of this is probably me, I have continued to play with it and tweak away. But now this drip, whatever it is, has me worried. I wonder if the fact there are only roughly 8000 clicks on it is a signal that something was wrong--with autofocus and/or the mystery leak.
 

Veritas

Senior Member
OK. Duly noted and gathering it up to send back. Any idea what it is? I can't imagine lubricants being neon yellow but who knows. But my bigger problem is that I find I really like the camera and not sure where to go to look for one. Anyone have recommendations for a good place for owner-owned equipment sales? I bought this one because the person disclosed the shutter count. Big camera store sites don't do that and while they have a return option I don't want to keep buying and returning equipment :(.
 
OK. Duly noted and gathering it up to send back. Any idea what it is? I can't imagine lubricants being neon yellow but who knows. But my bigger problem is that I find I really like the camera and not sure where to go to look for one. Anyone have recommendations for a good place for owner-owned equipment sales? I bought this one because the person disclosed the shutter count. Big camera store sites don't do that and while they have a return option I don't want to keep buying and returning equipment :(.


Not sure what you paid for it but you might want to kick in a few extra bucks and get a D7100 Refurbished body. Much better camera and it comes with a 1 year warranty

Nikon D7100 Digital SLR Camera Body - Factory Refurbished includes Full 1 Year Warranty
 

Veritas

Senior Member
I am having some problems replying so apologize if this pops up more than once--but think the idea of the 7100 is what makes sense. I was nervous about the age of the camera and the one year warranty on a 7100 has great appeal. Thanks--excellent suggestion.
 

spb_stan

Senior Member
The yellow fluid comes from the flash head or the dog house where the pentaprism is? The only component inside the camera that could have any pasty fuild, much thicker than the WD-40 reference, is in the flash circuit,a large capacitor used to discharge thrown an inductor where the collapsing magnetic field induce a very high voltage needed to flash the Xeon gas flash tube. Not a good sign, and it is very rare that one would leak electrolyte. Another option is the camera being stored in such as way to allow some external fluid to seep or drip into the camera VF/Flash doghouse housing.

The D7000 is more camera than 90% of shooters would ever need. The only two subject matters that would benefit in a real way, with a pro sort of camera are sports and birds in flight. I have yet to find a subject where my D7000 is not up to the task so use it as a second camera in events, weddings, and studio shoots were having a wide lens on my d800 and a longer lens on the D7000 can be used depending on the field of view needed for a shot.
Nothing wrong at all about the D7000, in fact its sensor is very good, better than the D7100 sensor. 16mpx is a sweet spot between processing speed and resolution. Unless printing large, any social media, computer display, typical print size images, any more than 16mpx is wasted, you are not seeing it because the display media can't resolve any more. For years, pro cameras were 12mpx and no one complained about poor resolution.

A D7000 from a reputable used deal like KEH will be a bargain https://www.keh.com/shop/nikon-d7000-16-2-megapixel-digital-slr-camera-body-only-black.html at $367
I paid $1320 for mine and it has been flawless and over 140,000 frames on it.
They have a D7200 for $869 but you can get a factory refurbished model for less than that.
Your subject matter and purpose for shooting will determine your best option. If I was looking for a general purpose do everything AP-c camera, and did not have the money for the D500, I would get the D7200 which can be had from Nikon refurbished for very good prices. It has the Sony sensor like the D7000 so is virtually ISO'less, and have very deep data fidelity in shadows like the D7000 unlike the D7100 Hitachi sensor which reveals banding and lack of fidelity if you need to boost shadow areas in post processing(you will, it is part of shooting wide dynamic rang scenes and displaying in a low dynamic range media like print or monitors. Shadow noise and color fidelity recovery is a snap with the Nikon modified Sony sensors but limited with other types of sensors. This has been the problem Canon users have been complaining about for years.
If you are shooting small prey, or sports, forget any of these cameras, save up for a refurbished D500. Probably the best action camera for less than $6,500 and not by much. Refurbs can be had for $1700. None of the other brands have a competitive model.
What do you shoot and how do you use the photos? That will determine what the best camera deal is. After all, the camera has almost no bearing on whether an image hangs in an honors place on a gallery wall. It is best to invest in the things that DO make a difference, like lighting, workshops or internships, post processing skills, modifiers, lenses, and last in this list of descending importance is the camera body. For beginners, Cameras usually take up the greatest buying decision which is backwards.
 

Veritas

Senior Member
Based upon where the capacitor is house I can't think that a leak would appear in this particular location, but it is possible. It is appearing in the area at the very top of the camera, just in front of the hot shoe--the rounded, slightly raised piece of plastic that the flash arm encircles when it is not deployed. I have really wiped the camera down but can also see residue of this around the rubber gasket on the eye piece if I pry up the edge. When I first used the camera and the flash was going off, it apparently warmed up a bit and some of this stuff liquefied I am thinking. I have referred to this slightly raised area as a seam, because the material did seem to be coming from that area. However, I would think that this is a molded piece/housing with no seams, but just cannot tell. However there are screws holding the hinges to the flash mechanism and the material reliably appears at a junction by the screw that I believe is on the same side as the capacitor housing. It is bright mustardy yellow and looked like a suspension of pigment/powder and mineral oil. I thought it was some kind of lubricant, like watch oil. But there is nothing to lubricate there unless a person wanted to "oil" the hinges of the flash and honestly, they would never use the amount of this stuff that has appeared unless it was by accident. It has the consistency and appearance of cadmium yellow oil paint that has slightly separated. That is as good a description as I can give. And, as I have used the camera, I am noticing some little vague blots of something in the view finder--could be on the mirror or the "whatchacallit" above it. They were not there initially. Don't know if they are related or not. They do not show up in images.

I am definitely in the "small prey and sports" category of photographer and also take portraits of people, pets, etc. I have an amateur naturalist's bent, but take as many photos indoors as out. I have good post production skills. I looked at Canon and have quite a few friends with those camera bodies but just did not click (ha) with them. This sounds weird, but they weren't as fun (to me). I had checked some Flickr groups and also looked at a lot of photo galleries for some of the older models of different manufacturers and liked what I was seeing in those photographs, especially the low light capabilities the photographers ascribed to the D7000. I did glance at the specs for the 7100 but for whatever reason the smaller pixel size bothered me. I am definitely not of the school that higher megapixel count is better. Phone cameras are the bane of my existence because I do drawings from reference photos and people send me these crappy shots taken from their multi mpx phone camera and think that is as good as it gets. I, too, felt that the D7000 at 16 megapixels offered a sweet spot between processing and resolution and I did feel I didn't need anything larger for now and wasn't convinced that. I viewed the D7000 as an inexpensive entry point that I could learn on and then later I would upgrade. In the 2 days I have had the camera my shooting ability has gone up exponentially and I do wish the darn thing didn't have this issue. The price point and functionality works for me. I am funding my kid's last year of grad school and discretionary funds are scarce. I felt the inexpensive camera body allowed me to invest in a nice prime lens and a couple of kit lenses, extra batteries, educational materials, etc. I am going to have a bunch of stuff to return.

Anyway, for now at least, it is the D7000 or D7100 if that will work for me. Otherwise I will just have to wait awhile until I can afford something else. Thank you for your help and thoughtful reply, and thanks to everyone who chipped in. I did not want something to be wrong with the camera because I have invested so much time in not only researching my options but also in hunting down what I hoped was a suitable piece of equipment. So the replies here have been very valuable to me. I feel something is not right about the camera...and the replies did prod me into action.

I do have a question for you if you don't mind. I have stumbled across a lot of comments about bad autofocus with the D7000. Any ideas as to whether these comments are valid or what they might be rooted in?

Many, many thanks all!
 

spb_stan

Senior Member
When the D7000 came out there were a lot of posts about blurry photos from people who had been using lower res cameras.I am moderator of a large Nikon community and dealt hundreds of such messages. There was no technical reason that made sense for why the camera was delivering more blurred images and every one posted appeared to have slight motion blur. Asking the questioner to mount it on a sturdy tripod got images without the problem. That was at a time when the best camera for pros was the D3s which had 12mpx. The old rule of thumb from the film days was minimum shutter speed for hand holding was 1/fl, so suggesting people try 1/fl*1.5 as minimum speed seemed to solve the problem. Eventually, a month of two of experience usually solved the problem 1/fl also. No one seems to mention it now because higher res cameras are the norm and people have gotten used to applying more care in hand held shots.. I never had that problem but I was using flash often, even in daylight for fill but suddenly did have a problem with any lens over 70mm just did not catch focus well, after click count was about 70,000. It started abruptly as a event and finished the event with a 24-70. I took it to the Sacramento service center when back in the US where I bought the camera and they said it only needed alignment, picked it up 3 days later (the day I bought a D800 when it first came out and there were 6 mo waiting lists...got lucky and got one 3 days after I decided to get one, from Costco which was located 4 states away)It has been flawless since that adjustment.
People have just gotten used to higher res and expecting them at 100% pixel peeping to be more sensitive to hand holding technique because 100% is more magnification on higher res cameras. Pixel peeping is a terrible habit to fall into but most do it and thinks it tells them something. It does but nothing relevant to the capture quality.
Since that first month or two of complaints, and no change in the camera, the problem of blur has evaporated. I find my D7000 locks onto decent focus target more steadily than my D800. The hysteresis of the servo is obviously different because once it locks the focus dot in the VF holds very steady.
Regarding the flash capacitor, it is located under and to the front of the doghouse so if it lost a seam, the only way it would seep from where yours did would be if it was stored upside down in its case or box. I have been inside D90s and D7000's. When I first got digital after years with Canon film(still love that old A1) the D90 had a lot of features and performance for the time and a moderate price of $1300. I took mine apart and designed/built a RF flash controller that worked on the same signaling as the optical CLS, about 4 years before Pocket Wizard got it working. By the time the d7000 came out I was not so interested in making warranty voiding modifications. The D90 is still a good camera and has over 150k clicks with never a problem. My GF uses it now. She seldom uses flash but the RF system still works great. That is why I know the location and type of photoflash capacitor is used in these models. I have a service manual now for both the D90 and D7000.
 

Veritas

Senior Member
Ah, Costco was for many years my downfall :)... Today I took the camera outside and took about 100 pictures with an 18-200mm Nikkor lens. I got a strange anomaly on one photo. It is a yellow smudge appearing on the image. Can anyone tell me what this might be? I am going to try to attach the photo.
 

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Veritas

Senior Member
I tried earlier to post this but it has not popped up in the thread. I took some photos outside with the camera in question and a Nikkor AF-S DX 55-200mm lens. I found this anomaly on one of the images. Does anyone know what this is? If camera related, that is fine because the camera is going back. But was planning to keep the lens which is new.Anomaly.jpg
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Can you try the lens on another camera? maybe even at a camera store. If not, I would look very carefully into the back of the lens to make sure none of your yellow goo splashed on the lens. If it did, your should be able to clean it. I suspect the yellow on the photo is your yellow goo that dripped down onto the sensor. Is so, since the camera is going back, not a problem.
 

Veritas

Senior Member
Thank you. I looked at the lens and it is OK. I also just found this, a yellow anomaly on the upper left corner, and the smudge is translucent. I think you are right. yellow goo :(. Ah well, at least I can return it and still use the other gear I bought. Will be looking for its replacement. Anomaly2.jpg
 
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