hour glass and raw...

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Blackbelly

Senior Member
Being brand new to the 7100 I have two more questions: first, after taking a picture the first thing I see in my monitor is an hour glass. What does that mean? Second, I'm continually, unintentionally changing the setting from Raw/JPG to "backup." Is there somewhere outside of the menu option that is making that happen -- like turning the camera off, switching to video, etc.?
Thanks, Rick
 
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PapaST

Senior Member
Not sure on the first. The second one is the Quality button to the left of LCD. If that is depressed while scrolling it will change the image quality (RAW, jpg, etc)

I'm sorry. I don't think I read your question correctly. Let me look on mine to see if I can give you a better answer... sorry. (Eating lunch while trying to post is apparently difficult for me.)
 
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Mike150

Senior Member
Just a wild guess, but I would think the hourglass is an indication that the camera is writing the new image to the memory card.
 
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PapaST

Senior Member
For the first question I'm thinking what Mike is thinking. I know that if I pop a card into a slot and immediately hit the PLAY button to view what's on the screen I'll get the hourglass for a split second. So I'm willing to bet it has to do with accessing/write speeds. What types of cards are you using?

As for the second question. Where are you seeing the RAW/JPG to backup change? At the top? OR on the main LCD? I'm guessing it's getting changed to utilizing the second slot as BACKUP rather than recording JPGs to that location. But I don't know how to change that without going into the Shooting Menu.
 
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Blackbelly

Senior Member
Thanks, PapaST, that answers my question nicely! I'll have to be very careful with scrolling through pictures from now on. There are too many ways to change image size, etc. I wanna shoot Raw with JPG backup all the time and I believe the best option for me is to designate: RAW+J in the "role played by slot 2" and Image quality being "RAW+F," but not sure which slot that Image quality is referring to?
 
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Moab Man

Senior Member
The camera is writing.

Second, I don't have my camera in front of me but the reason it's changing is you are holding a button down while rotating the front dial which will cycle it through the various qualities.

When I get home and have my camera I can tell you specifically what you're doing.
 
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Blackbelly

Senior Member
OK, this makes sense, but how come if I scroll to different settings with the Qual button, it does NOT change any preset MENU settings; not much reason for MENU options if it's all changeable with the command dial? And, technically RAW+JPG(fine) should allow me the smallest number of pictures -- on a 32 GB Ultra SanDisk (you asked, PapaST), I get 347 pictures and when I scroll to RAW only with the "image size" slot empty I show only 148 pictures possible. Both cards are recording the same RAW picture at that time so shouldn't the monitor still read 347 pictures available on the bigger disk? I suppose since it's all being recorded in duplicate and the smaller disk is only 8, then when 148 pictures have been recorded on both disks nothing more can go to the larger disk?
 
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yauman

Senior Member
Blackbelly said:
...when I scroll to RAW only with the "image size" slot empty I show only 148 pictures possible. Both cards are recording the same RAW picture at that time so shouldn't the monitor still read 347 pictures available on the bigger disk? I suppose since it's all being recorded in duplicate and the smaller disk is only 8, then when 148 pictures have been recorded on both disks nothing more can go to the larger disk?
Click to expand...

When you scroll to RAW, you will have two options of how the 2 cards behave - slot 2 for overflow or slot 2 for backup. In either setting the number shown will be the same ie 148. In over flowmode, that's the number for just one card. As the number goes lower and lower, the slot 1 card gets used up - it will not go to 0. After the last image is stored, the number will jump back up to 148 - and it's shown on the top LCD screen as the number of images possible for Slot 2. That how that number works. If you have say a 4GB card in Slot 2, the number will be half that of 148 after the initial 148 in slot 1. In other words,the number of images storage shown is for the current active card and not the sum total of both cards.

If you set slot 2 as backup, than each image is written twice, once in slot 1 and again in slot 2, so the number will be 148 and when it goes to 1, that's the last shot you can take.
 
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Blackbelly

Senior Member
Is there a way to set the camera so that I can visually see the JPG picture in Card #2? When I look at them in the monitor I think that only the RAW image is available. And so, is there a way to delete pictures from one card only?
 
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yauman

Senior Member
Blackbelly said:
Is there a way to set the camera so that I can visually see the JPG picture in Card #2? When I look at them in the monitor I think that only the RAW image is available. And so, is there a way to delete pictures from one card only?
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter what your setting is - when you look at the image, it's ALWAYS a jpeg rendition of the image - even if you set it to RAW only , you will still be seeing a JPEG version of it. Because of this, if you are shooting RAW only, make sure you set your picture control to "Neutral" otherwise if you set it to Vivid or something else, you are seeing your RAW process as a "Vivid" JPEG on the LCD screen.

So, I guess if you set to RAW+JPEG you are good as your LCD will show the JPEG version and whatever Picture control you set will be what you see on the LCD.
 
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Blackbelly

Senior Member
Yauman, thanks for the quick response; and now that you mention it, I should have remembered that I was only seeing JPG! Thanks. So, obviously I must delete the pictures as a pair.
 
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bigal1000

Senior Member
Please read the owners manual it's all in there or do a search there is plenty of info on the 7100 out there if you look for it !
 
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Blackbelly

Senior Member
bigal, I hope you're being facetious cuz the manual is 350 pages and believe me I've spent days reading it! Somethings just don't make sense because for example I've reset my U1 and U2 a dozen times and still cannot make it always work. For example if I shoot quickly, one in the bunch will always be over or underexposed.
 
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Blackbelly

Senior Member
Okay, it sounds like I'm looking for shortcuts instead of reading the manual, but I have read and reread it many times. I must be missing something that I'd hoped some of you could help me see. I try to use U1 with a high shutter speed (from my S setting) and U2 with a middle to upper f-stop (from my A setting). So, I include an appropriate ASA and focus setting for each and then save them; however, I still get some pictures randomly underexposed and do not know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks again,
 
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yauman

Senior Member
Blackbelly said:
Okay, it sounds like I'm looking for shortcuts instead of reading the manual, but I have read and reread it many times. I must be missing something that I'd hoped some of you could help me see. I try to use U1 with a high shutter speed (from my S setting) and U2 with a middle to upper f-stop (from my A setting). So, I include an appropriate ASA and focus setting for each and then save them; however, I still get some pictures randomly underexposed and do not know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks again,
Click to expand...

I think you misunderstood what the U1 and U2 setting is all about. It is for customizing the settings that you use most often but it doesn't mean that it's good for all images - you still need to make sure the your exposure is correct - ie use the exposer metering in your camera (viewfinder.) All the U1 and U2 settings get you is the custom settings that you use most often as a starting point. E.g, I set U1 for my preferred settings, ie Raw, 14-bit lossless, 2nd SD card as backup, AF-C, CenterWeigh Exposure, CL speeds, ISO, Speed, etc. and I set U2 for when I am doing off-camera flash for indoors events - crop image, 2nd SD card for overflow, rear curtain, Fn custom for Flash Lock, etc. It will save me from having to go through all the custom settings but every time I take a picture, I have to still adjust for exposure, F-stop and/or Shutter and/or maybe ISO for that particular scene. It just save me from having to fidget with the Raw, flash most, custom button etc.

Put it another way, for every shutter press, unless you are using the totally Auto mode ("kindergarten beginner - let the camera do everything" mode) you have to adjust for the exposure for the image - ie aperture, speed and/or ISO.
 
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Blackbelly

Senior Member
Thank you yauman, I probably was misunderstanding U1 and 2. What I'd hoped for was a fail-safe way to quickly shoot moving or action shots because when I attempted to use the Scene Sports Mode, I would accidentally slide off of it. That's when another person on Nikonites suggested I try U1. So, the U modes will not lock shutter speeds or aperture positions, is that correct?
 
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yauman

Senior Member
No it doesn't "lock" in focus or exposure - it just give you all the settings - and I mean ALL the camera settings that you have saved in Ux - everything you can customize - shooting mode, storage mode, focus mode, flash mode, etc. So, if you set to U1 when your aperture is at f3.5, Shutter at /120 and ISO at 100, than whenever you switch to U1, you camera will have those setting as well as all the other settings (image mode, custom buttons etc). Think of it as a way to quickly custom set your camera's custom settings without going through all the customer setting menu. So, if you are in Aperture Priority mode when you save to U1, then when you go to U1, you'll be in A -priority mode with whatever ISO and shutter speed you had when you "saved" to U1. Like I mentioned, I shoot in manual mode most of the time so I programmed all my favorite settings to U1. Occasionally when I decide to shoot A-Prioity (lazy or for Panorama sequence), I turn it to A-mode and when done, I turn it back to U1. Sometime, when I let some Point-and-shoot friend use my camera, I turn it to Auto. No problem - when I get it back, I just turn it back to U1 and voila, I have all my favorite setting. When I shoot in studio with studio lights and off camera multi speedlites, I just set it to U2 which has all my pre-programmed settting for that situation. But I still need to adjust for my exposure for each image I take.

If you want to shoot moving or action shot, you need to really understand the AF-C mode and how many focal points to use and how they are clustered.
 
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