V1.02
Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300
Page 124
have a card reader (it works just like formatting any disk
drive—open a window for the drive in Explorer [Windows] or
Finder [Macintosh] and use the normal formatting procedure
for drives; just make sure that you pick
FAT
, not
FAT32
if
you’re using a recent version of Windows, such as XP, and
aren’t using a 2GB or larger card).
Problem:
You get occasional “black” frames instead of
images.
Solution
:
Two possibilities. First, your battery may be low.
Replace the battery and see if the problem goes away. If not,
there’s likely a bad sector on the card that isn’t marked as
such. Another symptom is sometimes excessively long writes
to the card (or the green “writing to card” light stays lit), or
you get large black areas through your images. You need to
perform a
full
format
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on the card using a card reader
attached to a PC (which should detect and mark bad sectors).
However, if black frames appear on more than one of your
cards or on a regular basis, you should have your camera
checked by Nikon. Black frames are also a possible indication
of a shutter problem on D300 bodies.
Problem:
Part of the frame (typically the lower portion)
doesn’t seem to have all the colors or has lines and streaks
running through it.
Solution
:
This is almost always a card write problem. It often
happens when shooting continuous bursts and a card is failing
in some way (either the controller is bad or memory isn’t
getting marked as bad). Try other cards to see if the problem
replicates itself. If the problem is card specific, try doing a
low-level format of the card. If the problem appears on
multiple cards, have Nikon check the write-to-card function
on your camera.
Problem:
You can’t find images on the card or the computer
complains about damaged files when you try to transfer
images from camera to PC.
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Note that in some versions of Windows the default is to perform a
Quick
Format.
