Hi all, I seem to have an alignment problem with the horizontal IR beam from the SB700.
Regardless of lens or distance it always appears above the AF array in the viewfinder.
This makes me think it is not helping if it is not illuminating over the camera's AF sensor area. The vertical beam seems ok, splitting the middle of the screen but the horizontal beam is always too high regardless of lens, subject distance or angles, appearing about 1/3 of the way down from the top of frame.
A close inspection of the SB 700 / D7000 hot shoe interface shows no obvious damage or manufacturer error and looks to be well aligned and connected.
I tried Google but could not find any one else with this problem....
Has anyone else out there had this problem? Thanks...
SB 700 AF beam off target on D7000
(7 posts) (4 voices)-
Posted 8 months ago #
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Did you contact Nikon? Perhaps a phone call to the help desk will get you some direction. If they can't help, they will have you send it in to them for a look. Sorry about your problem, they can be annoying....
Posted 8 months ago # -
Have not bothered contacting Nikon at this point, I live in Australia and buy grey market as I believe Nikon Australia is running a racquet, so I am not expecting warranty...
I can live with this if I have too, even if I have to buy a new one I have still saved $thousands buy buying online from Hong Kong, and I get a handy remote flash...I was just surprised how little info there is for what I thought might be an easy thing to not get right during manufacture... Tick for Nikon QC I guess...
I was wondering if there may be an easy fix....
I will try contacting Nikon anyway, just to see what they say... Thanks!
Posted 8 months ago # -
OK, so i was curious and decided to test this with my d300s.
results are as follows
~ SB-700 af assist is outside of af area if the subject is too close
~ SB-700 af assist is inside af area if subject is at a certain distance (distance depends on lens)
~ SB-800 af assist is inside af area even at close distances.now this should be taken with a grain of salt, as this is also true;
~ SB-700 can af assist on all focus points
~ SB-800 can only af assist on selected focus points
~ SB-700 af assist pattern is more effective than SB-800 af assist pattern
~ SC-29 can af assist at close distances
~ SC-29 af assist pattern is more effective that SB-700 and SB-800
~ SC-29 can af assist on whatever focus points the connected flash is capable of af assisting on (see first two points).long story short. get an SC-29.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Thanks for testing your flash gear and sharing your results. Further testing of my SB700 / D7000 in a darker room against white wall shows that the horizontal beam does come into the field of the AF array but only with a combination of wider angles and further distances and only then gets the top row of AF points. Usually the distances and angles required are beyond common flash distances. At no point does it line up correctly and it is never too low. My conclusion is either my unit off target or Nikon got its aim wrong, at least on a d7000. I would like to also know how an SB900/910 aims and on FX to.
Perhaps an SC-29 maybe worth it for better AF performance. Now I am also wondering about the SU-800 AF performance...
Posted 8 months ago # -
sc-29 AU$94.30 on ebay au.
getting the right shot. priceless.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Gareth said:
sc-29 AU$94.30 on ebay au.getting the right shot. priceless.
why not use a SC-28 ? considerably less expensive than the sc-29
a quick check shows the difference as ..
"The SC-29 hot shoe connector is larger than the SC-28 hot shoe connector. "
"The SC-29 has AF assist built-in to the hot shoe connector."
Posted 8 months ago #
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