| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
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Batteries:
I had taken quite a few exposures (260) at 20seconds with 30 second intervals of stars at Kielder, it was pretty cold. Maybe -5C? the cars thermometer was recording -3C, it was freezing hard. I had already replaced one battery which had depleted.
The battery in the D3 wasn't empty, maybe half? We were sat in the car but could see the green light which flashes to indicate saving the images, when I noticed the D3 had stopped. I went to investigate and found it was displaying the Err message in the top screen. The camera was unresponsive and I couldn't persuade it to do anything.
Eventually the menus came active, I tried to find a 'two button reset' but couldn't find two buttons with green dots beside them, so gave up on that. I did however find an item on the menu that said resetting camera controls or something like that, so I tried it and the camera became active again, the 'Err' message went and the camera was usable. However, I still needed to go through the menus and reset things like "Long Exposure NR" to OFF, but I have lost the file naming setting which said D3A...... which was handy to be able to identify the image files but that's not crucial.
The camera went on to take a few more exposures with the same battery, but not many.
I fitted my third battery, an original Nikkon Battery but that didn't last many exposures before dying on me. Total of 350 exposures on three apparently full batteries. Although it did take a few (another 28) more this morning at the sunrise.
The D300S, by comparison, took over 500 exposures with one and a half batteries, which are much older, original D200 batteries, in exactly the same conditions.
The two non standard batteries I have are Germany sourced from recommended seller 2600mAH since I got the D3 maybe 18 months ago, not heavy usage. Regularly charged. I have to admit I usually charge the batteries immediately before a trip to be sure they are 'topped up' but I didn't do that this time because it's only a few days since I charged them all fully.
Banding:
I have been experiencing long exposure banding since early days of the D3, which slightly disappoints me. It seems to occur when I am doing time lapse interval photography, no issues with normal daylight images.
The D300S in identical circumstances has no similar banding issues.
It seems to start after say 15, 20 to 30 second exposures and get's worse/varies thereafter, with random patches of colour noise thrown in for good measure.
I have put it down to this being the first FX sensor that Nikon have produced and me pushing the boundaries by using it in such a harsh/demanding manner. When the images are used in star stacking software or star trails software the banding vanishes because the software blends the noise and that cancels it out but for time lapse video it doesn't, to that rules out that avenue of photography, no real problem, the D300S can cover that for me.
However...
I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that since the hiccup of the 'Err' message and my resetting the shooting menus the banding MAY have either reduced or gone. I can't see any sign of the banding since I reset the menus. That said, I have only taken 90 long (20 second) exposures at 30 second intervals since the reset, usually banding starts to appear after the fist 10 to 15 exposures...
I would like to better understand what was causing the banding and if it WAS a menu setting, what that setting was, so I can avoid it in the future. I still have to go through the settings to restore them as best I can, for future use, particularly the file naming convention.
Is there an equivalent "Two Button Reset" on the D3 or is the menu reset all there is?
Will post some examples of the banding tomorrow, am dead beat right now!
____________________
Robert.