Nikon D70S (Newbie)

Does anyone own a Nikon D70 or D70S please? If so I have just bought a D70S
and I am embarrassed to say that I cannot seem to display the number of
remaining exposures. I'm using a SDCFX Extreme III 2 Gb Sandisk card which
produces excellent photos but, try as I might, I am unable to view the
exposures remaining.

Any advice gratefully received.

Regards

Bob McKenzie

Bob Mckenzie wrote:
Does anyone own a Nikon D70 or D70S please? If so I have just bought
a D70S and I am embarrassed to say that I cannot seem to display the
number of remaining exposures. I'm using a SDCFX Extreme III 2 Gb
Sandisk card which produces excellent photos but, try as I might, I
am unable to view the exposures remaining.

It's displayed in the bottom right corner of the top LCD. It is the only
thing displayed when the camera is switched off.

-Mike

On 05 Oct 2005 in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, Bob Mckenzie wrote:

Does anyone own a Nikon D70 or D70S please?

Not many...

If so I have just bought a D70S and I am embarrassed to say that I
cannot seem to display the number of remaining exposures. I'm using
a SDCFX Extreme III 2 Gb Sandisk card which produces excellent
photos but, try as I might, I am unable to view the exposures
remaining.

Mike Warren's answer was right on the mark; however, to some extent it
depends on how you have the camera set up. If you're set to take low-
resolution small jpgs, the 2 gig card will hold about a gazillion
images[1], so the display shows "thousands, rounded down to the near
est hundred"[1]. So your display may be showing only a few digits.

[1] According to my D70 manual, p45: JPEG Basic, Small image size, a
256M card will hold 950 images, so a 2G card will hold about 7600.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe

Thank you both. In answer to Mike the top display shows 1.1K when switched
off and to Joe, I accept that the number may well be circa 7600 but it does
seem odd that nothing shows up in the display area. I was expecting to see a
countdown of sorts.

Even a message saying 'We will inform you when you're getting low' would
help

Very helpful and thanks again for the prompt response.

Regards

Bob


"Joe Makowiec" wrote in message
. 166...
On 05 Oct 2005 in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, Bob Mckenzie wrote:

Does anyone own a Nikon D70 or D70S please?

Not many...

If so I have just bought a D70S and I am embarrassed to say that I
cannot seem to display the number of remaining exposures. I'm using
a SDCFX Extreme III 2 Gb Sandisk card which produces excellent
photos but, try as I might, I am unable to view the exposures
remaining.

Mike Warren's answer was right on the mark; however, to some extent it
depends on how you have the camera set up. If you're set to take low-
resolution small jpgs, the 2 gig card will hold about a gazillion
images[1], so the display shows "thousands, rounded down to the near
est hundred"[1]. So your display may be showing only a few digits.

[1] According to my D70 manual, p45: JPEG Basic, Small image size, a
256M card will hold 950 images, so a 2G card will hold about 7600.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe

On 05 Oct 2005 in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, Bob Mckenzie wrote:

Thank you both. In answer to Mike the top display shows 1.1K when
switched off and to Joe, I accept that the number may well be circa
7600 but it does seem odd that nothing shows up in the display area.
I was expecting to see a countdown of sorts.

So whatever combination of image size and image quality you're set for,
the camera estimates that the card will hold 1100 pictures. It's
rounded to the nearest 100, so it won't budge with only taking a few
pictures.

Run off a couple hundred images, to get the number remaining below
1000, and you'll see three digits in the counter, and they'll count
down.[1] If the D70s is like the D70, the count also displays in the
lower right of the finder.

[1] My camera is set to take JPEG+RAW. On a 1 gig card, the initial
estimate is 87 images. Due to compression, the actual capacity of the
card is about 150 images. So the count actually goes down by 1 for
every 2 pictures or so that I take.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe

On 05 Oct 2005 in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, Thomas T. Veldhouse
wrote:

Joe Makowiec wrote:

[1] My camera is set to take JPEG+RAW. On a 1 gig card, the
initial estimate is 87 images. Due to compression, the actual
capacity of the card is about 150 images. So the count actually
goes down by 1 for every 2 pictures or so that I take.

You must not have upgraded your firmware to the 2.0 version. They
corrected the image count. I see 178 when set to just RAW using a
1GB card. I can't imaging RAW+JPEG would drop below 155.

I tried the upgrade a couple of times, but it errors out. Tried
emailing Nikon and searching the knowledge base, but no joy. Since the
camera still does pretty much what I want, the way I want, I haven't
been in a big rush to figure out why.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe

According to Joe Makowiec :
On 05 Oct 2005 in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, Thomas T. Veldhouse
wrote:

Joe Makowiec wrote:

[1] My camera is set to take JPEG+RAW. On a 1 gig card, the
initial estimate is 87 images. Due to compression, the actual
capacity of the card is about 150 images. So the count actually
goes down by 1 for every 2 pictures or so that I take.

You must not have upgraded your firmware to the 2.0 version. They
corrected the image count. I see 178 when set to just RAW using a
1GB card. I can't imaging RAW+JPEG would drop below 155.

I tried the upgrade a couple of times, but it errors out.

I would have expected that for a simple reason. The subject
header says that we are talking about a D70s. The 2.0 firmware upgrade
was intended to bring the firmware in a D70 (not "s") up to the same
level as that being released with the D70s. Since you are trying to
install firmware for a D70 into a D70s which has firmware already at
that same level (I'm not sure whether the hardware differences between
the D70 and the D70s would require a different firmware. Check what
version is already installed. I don't know whether the D70s has the
same sequence as the D70 (thus skipping over the versions prior to the
2.0 which was the level at which the D70s was introduced.)

However -- on the off chance that the camera in the Subject:
header is not yours (I see that there have been quite a few articles in
the thread before this one, but they have apparently expired from my
news server, so I can't see them) and you really have a D70, not a D70s,
let's check a couple of other things:

1) How are you trying to install the firmware? It has to be copied
to the topmost level on the CF card, not to the subdirectory in
which the images are saved.

2) And it *must* be a CF card -- *not* a micro-drive. They warn
about that on the web page where you download the firmware
upgrades.

3) I'm not sure whether it matters, but I have always upgraded
the 'A' half of the firmware before the 'B' half. And I've
always only put one section of the firmware at a time on the CF
card from which I have been upgrading. (I use an old 8MB one
which came with my original Coolpix 950. It is too small for
much of anything else. :-)

4) They suggest that the camera must be powered from an AC
adaptor, but in reality, a freshly-charged battery pack is quite
adequate. If you are low on battery, there is a chance that it
will run out of charge before the firmware update is completed,
leaving you between versions. This *might* need a trip to the
dealer service to fix it.

Tried
emailing Nikon and searching the knowledge base, but no joy. Since the
camera still does pretty much what I want, the way I want, I haven't
been in a big rush to figure out why.

I certainly got a change in my displayed flash card capacity
when I upgraded to the 2.0 firmware. I wish that I had gotten a similar
improvement in accuracy with the estimates for the JPEGs (medium/fine
setting is my usual one when not using RAW).

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 05 Oct 2005 in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, Thomas T. Veldhouse
wrote:

Did you use a freshly formatted card and put the A firmware image in
the root first. Upgrade. Format. Put the B image in the root.
Upgrade. ???

Yup. Numerous times. Several cards. Freshly charged batteries.
Transfer using cable straight to the camera, transfer using a PCCard card
reader.

The camera recognizes the upgrade, starts the process, but then errors
out. I was able to do the 1.x upgrade, so the camera is clearly
upgradeable.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe