D7200 won't fire SB-800 - THIS IS NOT THE REMOTE THING OR DELAY THING OR WHATEVER

G

GracieAllen

Senior Member
I have a D7200. And a Nikon SB-800 flash. I just put the flash on the D7200 for the first time and it doesn't fire when I trip the shutter...

THIS IS NOT THE THING WITH THE REMOTE OR THE DELAY OR WHATEVER IT WAS IS HAPPENING.

This is putting the SB-800 in the hot shoe, turning the camera on, and pressing the shutter. No flash.......



I ALSO have a Nikon D810 and a Nikon D300. I've been using the SB-800 for a very long time, and I know how to put the flash in the shoe. I tried it on the D810 - works PERFECTLY. Tried it on the D300 - works PERFECTLY. Put it on the D7200 - no flash.

I figure I've got SOMETHING set wrong that's KEEPING the 7200 from firing the flash, but whatever it is, isn't intuitively obvious...

SO, since I need this combination working in less than 36 hours, ANYBODY have any ideas for WHAT I need to change/reset to get this thing working?
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
GracieAllen said:
I have a D7200. And a Nikon SB-800 flash. I just put the flash on the D7200 for the first time and it doesn't fire when I trip the shutter...

THIS IS NOT THE THING WITH THE REMOTE OR THE DELAY OR WHATEVER IT WAS IS HAPPENING.

This is putting the SB-800 in the hot shoe, turning the camera on, and pressing the shutter. No flash.......



I ALSO have a Nikon D810 and a Nikon D300. I've been using the SB-800 for a very long time, and I know how to put the flash in the shoe. I tried it on the D810 - works PERFECTLY. Tried it on the D300 - works PERFECTLY. Put it on the D7200 - no flash.

I figure I've got SOMETHING set wrong that's KEEPING the 7200 from firing the flash, but whatever it is, isn't intuitively obvious...

SO, since I need this combination working in less than 36 hours, ANYBODY have any ideas for WHAT I need to change/reset to get this thing working?
Click to expand...
For starters, I would try a factory reset (press and hold both green buttons for five seconds or so) and see where that got me.

It's also possible there's a communication break down between flash and body, but no need to go there just yet.
 
G

GracieAllen

Senior Member
Thanks for the reply.


The body does "talk" to the flash - Flash goes into standby mode; when I press the shutter part way, flash wakes up. Also, with the shutter pressed part way, the red focusing lights on the front of the camera come on. When I PRESS the shutter, the flash DOESN'T fire, BUT the display blinks, as does the "ready" light...

After looking through the manual (again - yes, I'm one of those geeks that actually reads the manuals), looking online, and walking through all the menu settings AGAIN, I finally resorted to the sledgehammer approach.. I power cycled everything - pull the battery, pull the memory cards, and so on. Nothing. Did a reset on the SB-800 even though it was working fine on the other bodies. Nothing.

After all else failed I did the 2-button reset on the D7200 and that APPEARS to have "fixed" it...


MY problem NOW is I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SETTING WAS GOOFED UP... I just walked back through all the menu settings and put things back to where I had them and everything is working FINE, but I have no idea WHY...


---------------


In a POSSIBLY RELATED thing... When I have the SB-800 on the D7200, and I press the shutter part way, the RED LEDs on the front of the SB-800 LIGHT UP. I don't THINK I've ever seen them do this on any of my other bodies before... I switched the flash back to the D810 and tried it - and THEY DEFINITELY DON'T LIGHT. Did the same thing on the D300 and they don't light up THERE either.... All while sitting in the same chair in the same room with the same light... On the D7200 the red focusing (at least as I understand it they're just for focusing when it's dark) light/LEDs light up... So, since these would light even when the camera wouldn't FIRE the flash, it was TALKING to the flash, but something was going on... Now that it DOES fire the flash, the red lights still LIGHT up but at least the flash fires.


WHAT do I have set on the D7200 that causes the red LEDs to light? And WHAT did I have set that caused the flash NOT to fire?


I've turned the Flash Warning ON and OFF. Makes no difference as near as I can tell. BTW: Even with it off, with the SB-800 on top, the flash warning light DOES come on when the flash is ready.


I've turned Modeling Flash ON and OFF. Makes no difference... With it on, pressing DOF turns on the SB-800, but either way it still fires fine.


I even turned the built-in AF assist illuminator ON and OFF. Works but doesn't appear to have anything magical to do with the flash.......


I virtually ALWAYS use AFC and 51 points when using the flash; aperture mode; single shot; matrix meter... NOTHING odd (as far as I know) or interesting.


Anybody have an idea WHAT setting - presuming it wasn't the camera body having some sort of stroke - was/would again cause the flash not to work?


For the moment, it's fine, but Saturday I've got an even to shoot - the D810 will be handling the portraits, but the D7200 is my walk-around, candid unit. And it's going to be shooting 100% with flash in a Stroboframe, so having it SUDDENLY lose it's mind and stop firing the flash is NOT a recipe for success...
 
W

WayneF

Senior Member
GracieAllen said:
WHAT do I have set on the D7200 that causes the red LEDs to light? And WHAT did I have set that caused the flash NOT to fire?
Click to expand...


Basically, the D7200 needs the same settings as on the cameras that do it. The red led is the AF Assist lights, to help the camera focus in dark places. See page 335 of the D7200 manual, which about the white assist light on the camera body, but the same rules apply to the flash Assist. It's not that easy to get it on.

From page 335 of the D7200 manual:

assist.gif
 
G

GracieAllen

Senior Member
Well, being the over-prepared person I have to be when doing events, I have all three bodies in the bag for the weekend. If the 7200 even BLINKS wrong, I'll pull the D300 and go with that.

AS for the focus assist on the SB-800 - yup, I know what it does, I just don't remember EVER seeing it in the last umpteen years since I bought the Sb-800. And with exactly the same settings, ISO, mode, and so on, the 7200 is the only one that turns on the focus assist on the flash. Mayhap it's SMARTER than the D300 and D810? In either case, I don't care 'cause I won't be in the dark in the show hall so it shouldn't be a problem...

Beyond that, I'm going with the "its a fluke/you had something set wrong/you'll never do it again/it was a poltergeist/cosmic rays attacked the camera/whatever. If it never happens again, I'll be happy. If it does, I"ll stop in and whine about it!
 
G

GracieAllen

Senior Member
<heavy sigh>

I DON'T think it's a fluke OR cosmic rays... It turns out on page 147 of the manual, WAY AT THE BOTTOM, UNDER the picture and buried in a spot where even someone as obsessive about reading manuals as I am didn't see it, there's a line that has a "turns the flash off" setting... I didn't find it, a user in a different forum pointed it out to me. And even THEN, looking at the manual, looking at page 147, I STILL had to read it three times before I found the line buried at the bottom.....

SO, t'wasn't poltergeist, it was just another stupid human trick...


I don't feel quite as stupid as I might since I've never owned a Nikon camera (F100, D2X, D300, D800, D810, D7200) that had a "turns off the flash completely" setting before... AND, I CALLED Nikon and THEIR support person didn't know it existed either.


This morning I pulled the D7200 and played. And YUP, if you change the "flash" setting to OFF, the built-in flash is off AND SO IS THE HOT SHOE.....


What struck me as odd is I realized this morning I didn't even know HOW to change the setting for the flash "TTL, slow sync, rear curtain" etc. I had never changed it from the way it came. BUT, the two-button reset changed it from whatever it was to "TTL" so things worked. I can only presume that for whatever reason, mine was turned off - either by me doing it without realizing it, or from the factory.


In any case, lots of angst, a mild bit of panic, a fair amount of fumbling around, carrying a backup for the backup body, and 10 seconds to fix once I knew what it was...

Once the flash is int TTL (or your chosen mode), you can fire up Commander and the SB flashes work fine, or use the built-in... I KNOW I found having that stupid built-in pop up and "help" me was a pain in the tuchus, so I MAY have found the setting at some earlier time and shut the thing off, but I don't recall doing it...

ANYHOW, if you're even trying to use your D7200, and you hate having the flash pop up and help, but now you NEED the flash, and you don't REMEMBER you turned it off, TURN IT BACK ON. It's probably not broken, just off. And don't call Nikon - they don't appear to know the setting exists either.
 
W

WayneF

Senior Member
GracieAllen said:
<heavy sigh>

I DON'T think it's a fluke OR cosmic rays... It turns out on page 147 of the manual, WAY AT THE BOTTOM, UNDER the picture and buried in a spot where even someone as obsessive about reading manuals as I am didn't see it, there's a line that has a "turns the flash off" setting... I didn't find it, a user in a different forum pointed it out to me. And even THEN, looking at the manual, looking at page 147, I STILL had to read it three times before I found the line buried at the bottom.....
Click to expand...


You probably should have seen this on page 6, where it explains what the controls do.

Auto mode is "auto", and pops the internal flash anytime it is deemed needed. This Off switch prevents that in inconvenient places in Auto mode. That includes hot shoe flash, also inconvenient in those places where flash use is not acceptable, or not useful.

Even compacts have a setting to prevent automatic flash use.
The line through the lightning symbol means No Flash, in compacts too.
Don't choose it if you want flash.

This does not affect A, S, P, or M mode (dial cannot set it in those modes). This setting is "Auto, but no flash" (page 6).

In camera A, S, P, or M, we simply don't turn the flash on if we don't want it, but Auto often thinks it wants it.
 
Last edited:
L

lynnreneephoto

New member
Dear Gracie Allen,
I'm officially in love with you.
I too was scouring my manual, had read page 147, and couldn't figure out how my fingers accidentally turned my flash off during a recent event. And like you I also have multiple bodies with me as I shoot events a ton and simply switched my flash and lenses to help save myself.

THANK YOU for figuring out this fix.

Love that none of the men on this feed gave you any credit for figuring it out yourself and one even took the credit for "solving your problem".

Oiy, gotta love them I guess.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
lynnreneephoto said:
Love that none of the men on this feed gave you any credit for figuring it out yourself and one even took the credit for "solving your problem".

Oiy, gotta love them I guess.
Click to expand...
You're suggesting we should be patting women on the head for finding their own solutions?

And if you're looking at me when you say, "one even took the credit for "solving your problem", I was responding to being thanked for my response as well as letting it be known the two-button reset got things back in working order; I didn't take credit for "solving her problem" and even went on to say, "Not sure WHY it happened, or why the two-button reset fixed the issue but I hope you get that sorted out." My suggestion was a quick fix to get things up and running, which apparently it did; it wasn't meant to be a treatise on flash operation, as I think my posts make abundantly clear.

Cheers.. :D
.....
 
Last edited:
Top