D7000 in Ike housing with 2 ike 125s

Need some emergency help.

I have just put my D7000 in its new Ike Housing. With two DS125s connected with a dual strobe cord.

But I cannot get anything but black photos. All those comedians, the lens cap IS off, so save that thought!

Tried everything, strobes on ttl on 1/2 power, shooting on shutter priority and have tried it from 60 to 250 shutter speed.

Both strobes fire everytime, but its as if they did not fire at all.

Any ideas what incredibly stupid thing I might be doing? I had this setup as a D90 with no problems.

Thanks

Simon

Need some emergency help.

I have just put my D7000 in its new Ike Housing. With two DS125s connected with a dual strobe cord.

But I cannot get anything but black photos. All those comedians, the lens cap IS off, so save that thought!

Tried everything, strobes on ttl on 1/2 power, shooting on shutter priority and have tried it from 60 to 250 shutter speed.

Both strobes fire everytime, but its as if they did not fire at all.

Any ideas what incredibly stupid thing I might be doing? I had this setup as a D90 with no problems.

Thanks

Simon

This will not help but I have recently gotten the D7000, the latest in 30 years of Nikons for me. I have had occasions where the exposure is erratic, including nearly black images in bright sunlight. And how about that cheesy buffer......9 raw shots only on continuous high before choking!

I once had issue with a new housing which was hard wired for Ikelite strobes. It was the hotshoe connection inside the housing which needed a clean (Peter Mooney from Scubapixs pointed it out) with alcohol as sometimes there is a bit of fluff or crud inside the hotshoe. I unscrewed the screws and carefully opened the hotshoe trying not to loose the little springs inside and cleaned it. Put it back together and it worked.

I had a mate recently with the same issue with his brand new Ikelite housing and it also worked.

Its worth a try.

Regards Mark

Diverdave regarding the D7000 buffer what are you comparing it too to call it "cheesy"?

Regards Mark

Also simon I was thinking it maybe the Ikelites exposure dial on the housing which might be set to very low. Have you had a play with that?

Regards Mark

I have a D300 with Ikelite housing and I also have a D7000 without a housing. I connected up the D7000 to the D300 housing and connected 2 x DS125s. It all worked fine for me so you should be able to get it working.

Do you have the dual strobe cable connected correctly? Blue band goes to housing, red band goes to secondary strobe and no band goes to primary strobe.

Does the D7000 work on its own with pop-up flash? Can you test it with an SB800 or SB900?

Diverdave regarding the D7000 buffer what are you comparing it too to call it "cheesy"?

 

Regards Mark

My five plus year old Nikon D200 which does 22 raw before buffering. Five years in the digital age is like a century. 22 vs 9 ? I am rightfully disappointed. I happen to use the motor drive a lot (A LOT!) with the type of photography I do (breaching dolphins, whales etc). Another problem is I can shoot maybe four or five shots in raw, and then try to switch over to live view for a bit of video of the same subject and you wouldn't believe how long the buffer shuts me out before live view will work. This is a very weak link in this camera. I am sure the D400 or D800 will not have this problem but I have something coming up in September and I cannot wait for those to be announced (and housings to become available).

Hi Diverdave,

I can understand your disappointment but I am thinking your expecting the D7000 to have a pro bodies buffer capacity (D200, D300, D700 etc etc). I believe that Nikon deliberately limit the buffer capacity of the non pro bodies such as the D7000 so they can market their pro bodies. Even the D300s has a higher buffer capacity and also offers uncompressed RAW format when compared against the D7000.

I expect the D400 when it is released that it will have similar specs as the D7000 but with pro body high capacity buffer and features which Nikon reserves for their pro bodies.

Regards Mark

Silly question, have you checked the TTL selector switch inside the housing? Is it set for the bigger strobes. Mine (Ike D90) is marked for DS51/80, and a second setting for the larger strobes.

Not sure if it is the same on the D7000 housing.

Hi Diverdave,

 

I can understand your disappointment but I am thinking your expecting the D7000 to have a pro bodies buffer capacity (D200, D300, D700 etc etc). I believe that Nikon deliberately limit the buffer capacity of the non pro bodies such as the D7000 so they can market their pro bodies. Even the D300s has a higher buffer capacity and also offers uncompressed RAW format when compared against the D7000.

 

I expect the D400 when it is released that it will have similar specs as the D7000 but with pro body high capacity buffer and features which Nikon reserves for their pro bodies.

 

Regards Mark

I believe its more about Nikons choice to use SD on the D7000 rather than Compact Flash. I hope the don't change that on then successor to the D300.

John

Hi Diverdave,

 

I can understand your disappointment but I am thinking your expecting the D7000 to have a pro bodies buffer capacity (D200, D300, D700 etc etc). I believe that Nikon deliberately limit the buffer capacity of the non pro bodies such as the D7000 so they can market their pro bodies. Even the D300s has a higher buffer capacity and also offers uncompressed RAW format when compared against the D7000.

 

I expect the D400 when it is released that it will have similar specs as the D7000 but with pro body high capacity buffer and features which Nikon reserves for their pro bodies.

 

Regards Mark

I understand and have considered all you have said long before this post. The D200 was never really a pro body, more a pro backup body as the D2 and D3 were always the top of the line. I also went into this knowing the dD7000 would be one level lower that the d200, 300 etc. I have really been waiting for the D400 to come out but my trip is in September (Guadalupe Island). Seeing as the image quality and high ISO performance were so much higher than in the D200 I was pretty blown away at how bad the buffer was. In five years, the way digital has always gone, things get better and cheaper with time. Especially 5 years time. The D200 feels more serious with it's weight and build but the D7K has amazing image quality. Again, just amazed the buffer is so inferior to my dinosaur. When I am shooting fast action such as dolphins breaching, I put the D7K back in the bag and pull out the D200. In September I will be shooting great whites. I am dreading the shots I will miss (because you KNOW I will be shooting a motor drive for that). One of the principle reasons I upgraded is agents are starting to not accept images from cameras below 12MP. The D200 is 10MP. I don't want to be sitting on a ton of white shark images I can't market. I appreciate your willingness to help me understand this all but I do think describing the buffer in the D7k as "cheesy" is not really something that can be disputed. There are also the issues I mentioned about erratic exposure and there are upload issues as well (buggy software by Nikon)

There are also the issues I mentioned about erratic exposure and there are upload issues as well (buggy software by Nikon)

I've had no erratic exposure or upload issues with my D7000. My D7000 is in many respects better than my D300. The D7000 is missing a couple of features but I'm very pleased with mine.

I've had no erratic exposure or upload issues with my D7000. My D7000 is in many respects better than my D300. The D7000 is missing a couple of features but I'm very pleased with mine.

Lucky you. When I first got the camera I did a quality test side by side with my D200 (which has over 90,000 shutter actuations btw). Of course the D7K killed it in image quality and high ISO noise performance, the D200 held perfectly even exposures throughout the ISO range. The D7K was all over the map. As far as upload, Nikon View NX2 and Nikon Transfer kicks my queue out all the time. I need to start over again and again. I am using a Sandisk card which I believe is on the list Nikon released of compatible cards for the D7K (why do they even need to do that? I have never heard of any dslr being limited to specific brands). I am running a dual core processor and 4 gb ram. This should be plenty to accomplish this simple procedure. My .MOV files were also playing poorly (jerky) in Quicktime AND the Nikon software until I found out for windows machines they will play better if you change the file extension to .hdmov. Just as an experiment you should put your D7000 on a tripod and on Shutter or aperture priority and then shoot images throughout the ISO range of the same subject/ conditions, then compare exposures side by side. I would love to hear an honest assessment of your results.

As far as upload, Nikon View NX2 and Nikon Transfer kicks my queue out all the time. I need to start over again and again.

How can this be an issue with the camera? Or are you connecting the camera directly to the PC?

Personally, I have never had an issue with Nikon Transfer on Windows. It has always transferred my images from CF and SC without problems. I have seen a weird problem on the Mac with both CF and SC where the transfer will just stop. Clicking Stop and Start again will transfer the next image and it pauses again. This was happening long before I bought my D7000, though, so it obviously isn't a camera problem.

Just as an experiment you should put your D7000 on a tripod and on Shutter or aperture priority and then shoot images throughout the ISO range of the same subject/ conditions, then compare exposures side by side. I would love to hear an honest assessment of your results.

Interestingly, I did exactly this last week for testing ISO performance. I actually did 3 runs, 2 under available light and 1 inside against a tapestry using the pop-up flash. The resulting exposures were almost identical, except for ISO 25,600 which was slightly brighter.

I wonder if you have a faulty camera.