D800 fails to fire

[Heitz]

Noticed that sometimes my d800 just fails to fire. It seems to happen after firing off a few with the pop up flash. But, it's in focus and set to release, so can't figure out why it fails to fire. If I wait 10 sec or so it's fine. But I'm seriously missing shots! Very aggravating. Anyone?

 

[Derrel]

Has it been taking antidepressants???

 

[Heitz]

Has it been taking antidepressants???

Haha. Nice. But seriously, if its set to release mode, shouldn't the shutter actuate 100% of the time without fail?

 

[Patrice]

What mode are you using? If on full auto then the camera might be waiting for the pop-up to be ready. Just a guess though since I don't own a D800 and I don't want one.

BTW: do yourself a favour and go pick up a flash on Boxing day with your christmas gift money.

 

[Mully]

Shoot manually and see what it does ....could be autofocus is messing you up....I hate autofocus.

 

[Heitz]

I was using pop up to trigger 2 sb900s. I was shooting in manual mode. But I was using autofocus, though it was already locked by my holding af-on plus af-s mode. So it should have fired. It stalled out a lot

 

[KmH]

Were you using the pop up in CLS Commander mode? I you were, which mode were you using?

I too would first suspect the D800 was waiting for the pop up flash main capacitor to fully charge.

At what level of charge was the camera's battery?

 

[Heitz]

Were you using the pop up in CLS Commander mode? I you were, which mode were you using?

I too would first suspect the D800 was waiting for the pop up flash main capacitor to fully charge.

At what level of charge was the camera's battery?

It was in TTL. I did suspect that the capacitor was charging, but I was on a full battery. Unless the camera battery charges capacitors more slowly than the sb-900. I shouldn't be missing shots like this, though. I did not see if problem disappears if in manual flash mode.

 

[The_Traveler]

Full buffer?

 

[Heitz]

Well, I ran some tests. It is definitely either the capacitor charging or a built-in prevention for firing off too many flashes. I can get about 7 or 8 TTL flashes in before the D800 stops allowing shutter actuations. It then sits out for about 10-15 seconds, which can be an eternity if you are not expecting it. I'm not happy.

 

[gryffinwings]

IIRC this is pretty normal for popup flash, most certainly this is an overheat protection, you have to remember that it's pretty limited. You need a proper flash for what you need.

 

[KmH]

The built-in flash unit, and it's associated capacitor recharging electronics is nowhere near as sophisticated as what is in an SB-910.

The EN EL15 battery in your D800 is a Li-ion battery and will not recharge the pop-up's capacitor as fast as other battery types could, if other D800 battery types were available.

If you look at your SB-910 user's manual, you will see that while Lithium (Li) batteries give the most flashes per charge, they also take the longest (up to 4x longer) to recharge the flash unit than all the other battery types listed.

 

[Heitz]

Good info. Guess ill be buying another 900 to use as a commander. Thanks

 

[Patrice]

Nikon SU-800 cls flash commander is less expensive and very capable.

 

[Heitz]

Update... Just for the record in case anyone happens upon this post with same problem.

This week, instead of using my pop-up flash, I used an SB-700 as the commander, and problem solved. So several of you were correct. It was the capacitors charging or a safety mechanism. I just didn't expect that the pop-up-as-commander would turn out to be so useless (well, for me anyway).