"Err" mirror stays down

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Driesdk

New member
Hi there,

I have a d90 and yesterday all of the sudden during a shoot, it refused shooting.
I get a "Err" on top of the camera and when I push the shutter button I hear the camera trying, but doing nothing. The sound is a bit of a click and a motor trying to do something but giving up.

Important probably, the mirror is down and I can move it up if I gently touch it.
I tried removing the battery, removing the lens, using a different lens.
I can use the camera menu, watch the images and I can look through the viewfinder. I just can't make a picture.
When I go to the "mirror up" section, it's greyed out and says that it's not active in this camera mode.

I hope someone has an idea about what to do with this, and if I can bring it back to life.
I don't wan't to send it to nikon, since the repair is probably much, much more expensive the the camera is worth. So if anyone knows of something I could try myself, I'm happy to hear.
Thanks in advance
 
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spb_stan

Senior Member
Sorry, you are having this problem.It may be mechanical but there is a chance that it is locked up in a software problem. That happened to me after about 40,000 shutter releases but cleared it by removing the battery and letting it sit for about 24 hours so the internal capacitor that powers the display and housekeeping functions still exist(clock etc). Then re-installing the battery and doing a full factory reset pressing the two buttons with the green rest symbol next to them at the same time for 5 seconds. This will clear any settings you set in the menus and returns it to factory settings(but retains all the serial number, frame count, and other permanent memory data). This happened on my D7000 also and this procedure did not work. But I put it into live view mode and mirror did not go up so I gently raised the mirror into position and it stayed, then turned off live view, the mirror came down and has been perfect for the last 100,000 frames.

I still have my D90, which I bought just after it was introduced as my first digital camera in 2008. It has over 175,000 frames on it and still works perfectly. I use my D800 a lot more than the D90 and myD7000 but the D90 was my favorite as the best balance between quality, weight/size and forgiving general purpose photography. I carried it everywhere with me so it got used more often and some of my best shots were with that camera because it was with me. With decent light, it performs very well despite its current value on the used market. If yours turns out to be a mechanical defect in the mirror box, cost of repair will be more than the used value of the camera. In that case, if you like it(there are lots of reasons to stay with it) getting a used replacement might be a bargain and allow you to have the old one for parts in case they are needed in the future.. eBay shows they go for $90-150, usually with a lens. It is a lot of camera for $100.
 
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Driesdk

New member
Thanks for your replies. @spb_stan: I tried all the option an none worked unfortunately.
Gonna try to leave the battery out for a bit longer now, but I don't expect it to work.
All menu items work on the camera, but the reset with the green buttons don't seem to do anything.

I figured my shutter just failed as it was once supposed to happen. I got 95.000 clicks, so just below avarage.
I decided to go a new one, a d610 this time, because I could go with a discount on that one and this was already over the limit of money I could miss at this moment and I didn't want to be without a camera.
Nice to finally work with a full-frame, but still feeling a bit bad because I really liked that d90. I made some of my very best pictures with that camera and some good lenses.

Thank you.
 
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Bikerbrent_RIP

Senior Member
Welcome aboard. Enjoy the ride.
We look forward to seeing more posts and samples of your work.

Good luck with the new D610. You do realize the D610 is a full frame FX camera and your old D90 is a DX camera, right? Since you do not list your lenses, hope you have FX lenses for the D610
 
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Driesdk

New member
@Bikerbrent Yes, I realise that and my lenses, apart from the stocklens that came with the d90 are all FX lenses. I made sure to be future proof when I bought them

My most used lenses are a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 D and a Tamron 70-200 2.8 SP Di-Ld
I'm already enjoying the d610 and I'm gonna by a new shutter (30$ on ebay) and have some repairing fun with the d90. Who knows I can get it working again. It's only a 30$ gamble and if I can get it to shoot again it will make a great camera to shoot on holidays, if I can't, well, nothing lost
Thanks again for your kind replies to a newbie on this forum all.

Some of my d90 pictures can be found at: flickr /daltonstudio if you guys wanted to see some pictures.
 
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