Mirror scrached! D3100

[chirantha7777]

My friend had been changing lenses on his D3100... (My 18-105 back to his 55-200).. He has accidentally touched the bottom right corner of the main mirror. There is a tiny smudge and a two tiny scratches on it now (he was swift, but I think his nail touched the mirror which caused the scratch)... but amazingly the scratch nor smudge is not visible in the viewfinder. How is that? does that mean its not a scratch? I told him to take it to be cleaned by a pro camera shop. He is not concerned but he said that it might turn black after some time! What does he mean? is it true?

The scratch looks whitish....

 

[sam_franklin]

I'm not really in the know but I imagine the reason that the scratches aren't in the viewfinder is because the viewfinder in the D3100 has around a 95% coverage. This means that if the scratch is where you described it might be on the very edge of where the viewfinder covers.

Hope that helped.

 

[o hey tyler]

Maybe it wasnt the mirror he scratched, but instead It was the sensor? 0_o

(Pretty unlikely though.)

 

[o hey tyler]

Also, since when could a finger nail scratch glass? My iPhone screen should be destroyed at this point.

 

[cwcaesar]

Yeah, no kidding!

 

[Patriot]

Why did he stick his finger inside!?

 

[pixmedic]

Why did he stick his finger inside!?

thats what SHE said!

 

[Josh66]

I'm thinking that the scratch probably isn't actually a scratch.

You should be able to clean it off (very carefully). The mirror and the mechanism that supports it is a little delicate, so if you're not sure of your abilities to clean it without doing more harm, I would either leave it alone or take it to a pro.

Worst case, if it is a scratch, or it's just a mark that you can't get off - it won't affect your photos in any way.