Nikon problem

faulknerwn · March 17, 2012

I'm still trying to get my Nikon D7000 to work well for me in free fall. I put a Tokina 11-16 on it today. Worked great and got gorgeous photos the first jump. Second jump photos were dark and it stopped shooting halfway through and all the pictures were full of noise it appeared - even though the iso was only 200.. There were lots of black dots in the picture and they weren't on the lens. Went away by the landing shots. Nice sunny day with some white puffs..

I had it in shutter priority mode. 1/640 CH mode for shooting. 6 fps. Sunny White Balance. AF-C ISO 200.

And the settings were the exact same for both jumps which were 10 minutes apart! I'm so confused as to what is happening!!! Both jumps were in focus..

I'm gonna try sports mode next time to see if it helps anything but if anyone has any clue I'm in.

Had this problem last week on the kit 18-105 but thought a wide angle lens would be better.

The Tokina lens did take gorgeous pictures on the first jump..

Any ideas as to what could be happening?

linestretch · March 17, 2012

How's the humidity? Is it high where you're at?

I would say the first problem is that it's a nikon! Just kidding...that's all I had.

my pics & stuff!

faulknerwn · March 17, 2012

Next jump I went up with it in sports mode. Great pics but cut off 1/3 way through skydive. Interesting enough it chose to shoot at ISo 400 and 1/1600 shutter speed

Taped the half a coozie around it an gaffers it to hell and went up with my original settings - worked the whole freefall but still had a lot of noise in the pictures that didn't exist in sports mode

Gonna do the next jump in sports mode and see if I keep the artifacts out and what settings it chooses and then maybe choose its shutter speed

gowlerk · March 18, 2012

Hi Wendy,
I don't know what is causing your problem. But you should know that "sports mode" is designed to freeze action. That's is why it boosted the ISO and the put the shutter speed so high. It probably also opened the aperture up all the way. Of course noise is usually caused by high ISOs, but not 400. You won't be able to choose shutter speed in sports mode. Most settings are taken away from you when you use the "special" modes, they are designed for people who can't be bothered to learn how to use their camera.

Pics being cutoff partway through the dive could be a card problem, try a different card, maybe take out card two and try it. Your Tokina may be having auto focus problems. It could be stopping while it hunts for focus. If you are using auto focus try manual, it will speed up the frame rate. I see you are using AF-C, this should work if you are pointed at what you want to shoot when you start, but AF-A may work better. The AF system is pretty smart.

You are best off to start off using the P mode. These are daylight shots, and your camera should handle them no problem at whatever ISO you choose, or auto ISO if you choose.

Read here for tons of info on this camera.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d7000/users-guide/index.htm

This guy goes on and on about Nikon stuff. But it is a well layed out website. Lastly, there is always the possibility that there is an intermittent electrical problem inside the camera. Try cleaning the lens contacts.

Good luck
Ken

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

faulknerwn · March 18, 2012

I'll try the -a mode for autofocus. The lense coozie seemed to help it make it through the jump, although I'm still getting noise when I shoot in p mode - at least at 1/640 and 200 iso In sports mode I didn't get the noise

I absolutely Prefer to shoot shutter priority mode but at the moment sports mode is the only one not giving me noise in the picture.

Why I can't figure out. It is on autofocus but the pictures seem to all be in focus. I think it was wind vibration which caused te shutting off. I just can't figure out the noise issue.

It's very odd.

Thanks for any help.

dragon2 · March 18, 2012

I have no idea which setting could cause an issue like that, but I would reset the camera to factory settings and jump it like that (on S). See if there is still noise.

ciel bleu,
Saskia

Laszloimage · March 18, 2012

can you please attach one or two of those noisy pictures (a small 400x600)? and make sure the files contain the exif data as well

faulknerwn · March 19, 2012

The dots were not on any of the ground photos or the photos in the airplane. They were in the free fall shots, and shots I took while under canopy. They were gone again by the time I took shots of the tandem coming in to land. They were not on the lens (notice they change size and location).

I really think I must have some setting stupidly set the wrong way and I'm too blind to see it but I can't figure it out..

The pictures I took with the camera on sports mode all came out fine with no issues.

linestretch · March 19, 2012

Pretty sure those spots are nasties on your sensor. They tend to show up more when the F-stop is at a higher number (or smaller aperature...opening).

my pics & stuff!

unknown1 · March 19, 2012

It's dust or other muck on the sensor.
It is most obvious when the background is light and plain. (e.g. cloud or blue sky)
It's also worse with wide angle lenses.
A stopped down aperture (i.e. greater than f8) also makes it worse
If you shoot jpeg, the sharpening algorithm in the camera also makes it worse.
The marks are still there if the background is more cluttered. They are just less obvious.

Solutions
Get the sensor professionally cleaned.
Keep dust out the camera
Use wide apertures if you can.
Use a longer lens (difficult).
Shoot raw - take the marks out in post processing.

Hope this helps

faulknerwn · March 19, 2012

But how come when I had sky in the shot when they were coming in to land they weren't there? They were also not there on a jump after this when I shot in sports mode.

The camera is practically new so I can't imagine it having often that much dust in the sensors.

I took a whole bunch of flower shots yesterday and they were definitely 100 percent sure not in those pictures.

Laszloimage · March 19, 2012

In addition to "linestertch's" comment the JPEG files you uploaded are highly compressed. Are these the original files? Some seems to me cropped though...
For example the DSC_7913 image has the resolution of
4928x3264pixels. At this resolution even if the image has mostly white clouds and blue skies the file size should be at least 1.5-2MB. The attached file is only 270KB... When you talked about noise you meant those lines and non-gradual change of the color tones in the image? For two of the images exif data says f16 and f18... If light has to go through a "such a small hole" of a not the highest quality of lens and projected to a 16MP sensor it definitely look bad.
Basically at f16 or f18 (but even f13) a lens can't pass high enough resolution (sharp if you will) image, but exposes the sensor. The result is a 16MP file carrying maybe 4MP of information/detail
On the sunny day using TV at 1/640s with AF I would use ISO100 or even ISO50 if that's available

faulknerwn · March 19, 2012

They are compressed to try and put them on here.The files were quite a bit larger but I had to try and shrink them. One of em I did crop too..

I had it on Shutter Priority Mode, 1/640 - it chose the aperture. I can change it to 1/100 for sure. Sports mode chose 1/1600 and ISO 400 which was odd.

And the noise I was talking about was mainly the dots all over the pictures.

Its odd - its becoming apparent to me that the settings I used for years on my T1i are going to be quite different than what work on the D7000. That kinda surprises me.

dragon2 · March 19, 2012

Agreed with posters above, that's not noise but looks like a dirty sensor.
Noise looks more like this.

Quote
How to see sensor dust

If your camera has dust on its sensor, you can quickly spot it by doing the following:

Set your camera on Aperture Priority Mode.
Set your metering mode to Matrix/Evaluative Metering.
Set your camera ISO to the lowest number such as ISO 100 or 200.
Turn off Auto ISO.
Turn off autofocus and set your lens on manual focus.
Set your aperture to the largest number available for your lens by rotating the camera dial. For example, the minimum aperture on the Nikon 50mm f/1.4G is f/16, so if I were shooting with this lens, I would set my aperture to f/16.
If you are outside, point your camera up at the clear blue sky and take a picture. If you are indoors, find plain white paper, zoom in all the way so that the paper fits the whole frame, then make sure that the lens is completely out of focus and take a picture. If you are in front of a computer, open up a text editor such as Notepad, maximize it to the screen and then get as close to the monitor as possible so that only the white color is visible in the frame. Make sure that your focus is way off (completely out of focus) – that way only dust particles will be visible.
Zoom in on the image (rear camera LCD), scroll from left to right and top to bottom all over the image and see if you can find any dark spots.
If you cannot see any, your sensor is clean. If you see dark spots like in the above example, then your sensor has dust on it.

You can get your camera cleaned but I usually do it myself.

First off you can let the camera clean itself. Sometimes this helps.
2nd you flip the mirror (there's a lock-mirror menu option for that), hold the camera upside down and give a couple good blows with a good blower. Do not touch the mirror with the nozzle. Do NOT get one with bristles on it.
I prefer the giotto, myself. This is how I do it:

Take a sensor-dust-check picture to see if you need better cleaning. If you do, best take the camera to a camera shop for cleaning (again, you can clean the sensor yourself with swabs+fluid or spinning brush cleaner if you are feeling brave enough)

ciel bleu,
Saskia

cloudtramp · March 21, 2012

Do a test jump in Aperture priority mode and set the Fstop to whatever the lowest number is on your lens (ie. 2.8, 3.2) DO a test jump like that and if the spots are gone than you know it's just dirt on your lens/sensor. If they are still there than you have other problems.

Or just do it on the ground. Take a frame @ f/2.8 and then another @ f/22. take a pic of a white wall or something and then compare the two frames.

fincher · March 21, 2012

listen to laz, You are shooting the wrong setting for those conditions. Why do you want to shoot 1/640? You are in bright conditions even shooting into the sun at times with a shutter speed that will not allow the aperture to be in an optimal range. Increase your shutter! and try to get your aperture more in the 6.3-8 range. I just shot my D300s at the sky on a shutter of 640 and the aperture was off the chart! A cloud blocked the sun and it shot F20. That will surely be a less than optimal photo. This is why sports mode or any automatic mode is going to give you much highrer shutter speeds. this is the cameras way of telling you that you are being ignorant. It changes for the ground shots because now you are not shooting directly into sun lit clouds and sky. Now you have some of the ground for the metering to take into account and the aperture will open to a smaller numerical. this puts you in a more optimal exposure situation. I will attach the two test shots here. one at 1/640 f20 and one at 1/5000 f/6.3 both with an ISO of 200. Both of these shots are cropped from the same part of the sensor. You will notice the smae dots in my f20 as you are getting. None in f6.3