Lagging Shutter Button Questions

[eric-holmes]

I was doing a portrait session with a 1 and 2 year old yesterday. When doing these sessions I usually just fire the shutter in continuous bursts. You can't really pose them, so I just try to capture the moments. Well I have a grip on my D90 and there were several times yesterday when I was trying to use the shutter button on the grip and nothing would happen. I don't know if it was making a poor connection or if the memory card was lagging. I usually don't have a problem with this but yesterday it happened twice causing me to miss a few opportunities.

The grip is Nikon brand and the memory card is SanDisk 2 8g. Not the extreme or anything like that.

 

[shmne]

As far as the memory card not being able to keep up, the only way to know for sure is to really keep an eye on the counter (not really positive if nikon has one like the canons do).

It could have been the grip, since I know from experience that old grips as well as cameras that have a lot of use on them can start to lose their connection. A good way to test this out if it continues to happen is to literally sit down and shoot a ton of photos and wait for it to happen again, when it does see if jostling the shutter button a bit makes it fire. If it does, it may mean the connectors in the button may be getting worn down and need to be replaced.

I know this was happening to a three year old grip for the cannon we have at work, and after I tested it a bit they decided to send it in and see if it needed to be repaired. Turns out the contacts were going bad.

 

[Big Mike]

If the problem doesn't happen with the camera's shutter release button, but does with the button on the grip, then it's the grip.
These things tend to be a bit finicky. I was doing a shoot on Sunday and one of my radio triggers (I was using two systems) wouldn't consistently fire when I was using the grip's button...but it seemed to work just fine with the camera's button.

 

[myfotoguy]

I would also check the connection between the grip and the body. Try using DeoxIt to clean the contacts to make sure you have a good connection.

 

[djacobox372]

Check to make sure focus confirmation isn't getting in the way. Most nikons default to a setting that won't take a photo if the camera thinks it isn't in focus.