D70 R.i.p

[clive francis]

On Saturday we took our little boy to a bird park and not missing the opportunity to improve on my manual shooting i took along the D70 and the Bigma (Sigma 50-500).

as soon as we walked through the door at the bird park the camera was out.

taking the first shot, the camera seemed to take ages to write to the card, the green light just kept flashing.

thinking it had locked up i switched it off and back on again.....nothing, except the flashing green light.

so again i switched it off, only longer this time and again nothing except this flashing green light, but i noticed that "CLOCK" had now appeared on the top LCD display.

i took the batteries out and put them back in and nothing, i changed the battery, memory card and pressed the reset button and still the damn flashing green light.

it would display any previously taken photo or menu on the screen.

i decided to try another lens just incase it was that.

so off with the 18-50 and on with the bigma.

again nothing, the camera would not play.

i was in the process of taking off the lens which with something this big is a 3 handed job when in slow mo i saw the whole lot heading for the floor!

there was a loud bang and then silence apart from someone not far away laughing and saying "oh *****!"

the camera and lens are now in for quotes to repair, but the guy said it was more than likely to be a new camera has the case/shassis had broken and cracked from the rear corner all the way around to the F-Mount, plus there was something screwy going on electrically as the hot shoe was "HOT!".

the lens didn't smash any glass, but the end went a bit eliptical with a big dent, the HSM focus mote wouldn't work and when changing the focal length it was very stiff.

luckily for me the camera was covered by extended warranty and the lens by my house insurance, otherwise i could have been £1600 lighter this weekend!

 

[ssra30]

Ouch, sorry to hear about the problem. Initial problem that you have is a well known problem with D70. There is a problem with power supply on some batches of D70. Our group has 6 D70's, 5 of them at one time or another had this lock up problem with flashing green light of death. Mine was the first one to go 3 months after purchased. The last one went in for a service a little more than a year after the purchase. Nikon replaced some power thingy in the camera and light sensor to fix the problem.
I am not sure why Nikon did not recall all the cameras, I guess not all of them had this problem although many that I knew of ran into the problems ( of the 5 out of 6 that had the problem, 4 were purchased at the same time).

 

[kdietz]

Ouch....good thing for insurance

My wife's D70 developed the dreaded blinking green light of death yesterday....first time I've heard about this problem, but it's all over the dpreview forums.....FedEx'd to Nikon last night

Now I'm worried about my D70 as we are less than a month away from a trip to Bonaire

Karl

 

[ssra30]

Karl, I hope yours will be ok for the trip. Mine happened 2 days before a divetrip. Luckily I was able to burrow my divebuddy's unit for the trip since she was not going on it. She was not as fortunate and hers happened while she was on a divetrip with her friends with no backup camera

 

[Warren_L]

Ouch....good thing for insurance

My wife's D70 developed the dreaded blinking green light of death yesterday....first time I've heard about this problem, but it's all over the dpreview forums.....FedEx'd to Nikon last night

Now I'm worried about my D70 as we are less than a month away from a trip to Bonaire

Karl

Karl, how long ago was your wife's D70 purchased? I bought mine about 3 months ago and am wondering if this problem has been with units purchased recently or a while ago.

 

[kdietz]

Warren, we bought our 2 bodies in the first couple of months after they were released in the spring of 2004....mine flooded and was replaced in April of this year, so it should be OK

I understand that only the ones sold in the early months have the problem

Karl

 

[clive francis]

Warren, we bought our 2 bodies in the first couple of months after they were released in the spring of 2004....mine flooded and was replaced in April of this year, so it should be OK

I understand that only the ones sold in the early months have the problem

Karl

i bought mine the first day they came out in the UK, the really annoying thing is and one that Nikon should get a kicking for is that it went back to Nikon in January for another problem with the autoexposure so if this was a known fault with the early D70's why the hell didn't they just swap out the faulty part!?!

they were probably hoping it would fail outside of the warranty and then be able to charge for it which it did but they can't

that just stinks and Nikon should be bloody ashamed of the poor customer service or should i say lack of customer service.

I would recomend anyone who has a D70 to write to Nikon giving the serial number and asking if their model has the old circuitry liable to develop this fault.

if they say no and it then develops the fault you have the ammo for getting it repaired free of charge!

 

[Warren_L]

I've been reading up on all the complaints on dpreview on the D70's BGLOD ... which worries me somewhat. Mine is only a few months old (April). I don't know if there are any recent purchasers of the D70 (or even the D70S) that have experienced this? I've got the extended warrantee, but I'd be peeved (to say the least) if it crapped out on me during my liveaboard trip later this month.... :shakehead

 

[justleesa]

Ouch! That hurts. Hope that it all clears up for you.