D800 Multiple Exposure setting bug

Anyone else having issues with the D800 Multiple Exposure setting?

I've studied the manual and thought I had this fixed, but am concerned it may be a bug. In ME setting menu when "Single Photo" (vs "Series") is selected and when "Continuous High" or "Continuous Low" settings are selected, the manual says that the shutter release captures all 3 exposures in one burst, then ME shooting is supposed to stop. This has not been happening.

Today I tried to capture some fall color and had the same problems, but once I realized it was happening again I changed approach and tried to take a multiple exposure (as described above - set on 'single photo' and Ch), then after the shot I got the ME icon (the two rectangles) and thought the image was recorded correctly. To be save, I reentered the menu to manually turn ME off. Then, I would power the camera off, back on, and then reenter the menu, turn ME back on, set to 'On - Single Photo' before I recomposed the scene and shot another frame, thinking this would solve the problem, but it didn't. It merged the first ME with the second, meaning I think the camera has made one final ME image by combining all 6 bursts from the two attempted ME shots.

Help? Ideas? Thanks ahead

Here you can see a horizontal scene done in ME (it's a dock on a lake) with the vertical framing (also shot in ME) combined. I did the whole on/off/reset menu, etc, but still the D800 seems to be combining these as if the camera was set to "S" exposure instead of what it was: CH (continuous high).

Wish I could help, I have never tried this before. My advise, if you can't get an opinion here, call Nikon.

Please post an update when you resolve it, I am curious to see what it is.

Thanks

@Photowyzard, I'm still waiting to hear back from Nikon USA, will let you know if/when I hear anything!

I'm not sure I understand your question correctly. Are you talking about "bracketing" multiple exposures, or, multiple exposures to blend two shots together? Seems the image you got was a "multiple exposure" where maybe you should be looking at "bracketing". Maybe look up bracketing in the manual and try that. I suspect this is more what you are looking for.

I chose the multiple exposure feature because I could also set the amount of gain in the sequence (in my case -1 EV, 0 EV, +1 EV), just like I can with the Bracket button, the idea being that the multiple exposure feature would combine all three captures into one image, effectively making it an in-camera HDR (more on that later). Using the bracketing feature with three separate images still forces me to combine them post capture in some software program, and I can't do that now because the D800 shoots a proprietary RAW file, which rendered my Lightroom and Photoshop versions useless, so I have no workable programs to merge.

I would select the option of shooting in HDR but the D800 doesn't do so in RAW (understandably given the huge file size) so to go from my normal shooting mode (of RAW > CF and JPEG > SD) into the menu, turn off RAW capture, shoot the HDR, then reset my shooting menu again.

I should add that even if I'm taking the wrong approach to achieve a broader dynamic range (bracketing vs multiple exposure - I admit I'm not sure what the difference is except for what steps are required post capture) , the issue still remains that the D800 set to Multiple Exposure/Single Photo should take one multiple exposure and then reset to resume normal shooting. My particular camera is not doing so. If anyone else out there has a D800 please give it a whirl and let me know if you're having the same issues, it could just be my particular body.

Hope that makes sense. To prevent missing more great shots, I'll probably have to bracket for now, and merge the images later once I save enough $ to upgrade Photoshop and laptop (the newer versions of Lightroom and PS are not compatable with my laptop. God, this get$ expen$ive!)

Thanks for the reply.

Try Photomatix, it's not expensive and will probably read your D800 raw files (it does read my D600 raws). I don't think multiple exposure will do in-camera HDR, but maybe I'm wrong… wouldn't be the first or the last time…