D300 sticky shutter story
Hey all, i wanted to relate a story that happened to me.
A number of weeks ago i came across an annoying problem that was causing me to miss shots.
It all started on a cold, moist, wintery morning on a pebbly beach and i was down on my stomach shooting Rock sandpipers and Black oystercatchers.
My breath was misting up the back of the camera considerably and it was actually dripping it was that wet and cold.
It was a bit later that the shutter got sticky.
By sticky i mean that the shutter would go down but not back up every now and then - maybe once every 20 shots or so, but sometimes much earlier.
There was no way to re-set the shutter except by removing the lens from camera body.
With no lens on the body the shutter would then work again normally and i could put the lens back on and it would work again for a bit.
In the end i did get some decent shots but missed many great poses as well, fiddling with the lens and camera, not to mention risking dirt or worse getting in, i was doing it so often.
I didn't have much opportunity to get out shooting after that but the times i did get out the shutter stick was still there.
I decided moisture from condensation was probably not the culprit (as i thought at first) since it warmed up considerably later and there were presently no moisture issues.
I then thought that maybe the shutter life was coming to an end since i had used this camera a lot.
It had seen action in Thailand (where it was dropped and subsequently repaired by Nik Thailand in Bangkok) and a number of trips state-side not to mention at home.
I checked the shutter count and while it was fairly large at 86,000+ it wasn't near the advertised 150,000 life.
I dreaded having to send the body in for servicing and was doubly scared that maybe my 500mm f4 AFS could be the problem, that would be even worse.
I'm lucky in that i have a spare D300 body (lesson learned in Thailand) but still...
So, to make a long story shorter the other day i was out and met another photographer in the field who knew the story and he asked me if i was using the spare.
I said no, and yes, i did have some shutter stick issues that day and i guess the camera wasn't going to magically fix itself like i had hoped after all.
I went home and finally did some online research into whether others had suffered shutter stick with their D200/D300's as well.
Time to tackle the issue.
Turns out a few had.
Eventually i found some advise concerning the use of Battery Grips and low batteries in D200's, turns out a low battery (at least in the grip) can cause shutter failure sometimes.
I thought back to when this all first happened and realized that i had indeed been running my batteries down low lately before replacing.
I had decided at the time not to replace the grip battery since i was in position and didn't want to risk scaring the birds in front of me.
The grip battery had been at 0% each time after (i had neglected to recharge) so it makes sense that the stick would keep occurring like it did.
I did some testing at home by shooting with grip on and with it off, sure enough, i couldn't make the shutter stick once with it off.
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So there you have it, sorry for rambling but it pays to keep your batteries charged in your grips, many missed shots could result if you don't.
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