Nikon F5 changing ISO on its own

[dhkirby]

Hi all,

Had a weird thing happen with my F5 this week where it's changing the iso on its own - I'll have it set to ISO 100, then I'll turn the camera off, and when I turn it back on it's set to ISO 25, for example. Doesn't happen every time I turn the camera off and on, but has happened multiple times. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the ISO it chooses to bump to, or when it decides to switch that I can discern. Any ideas what could be causing this, or if there's a fix? I haven't been using dx readings.

On a related note, does anyone by chance have any experience developing Rollei Ortho 25 Plus rated at ISO 50 or 100, or Ferrania P30 rated at ISO 25? I have D-76 and Microphen on hand, so those devs would be preferred.

Thanks!

 

[MFstooges]

I don't have F5 but my understanding is the newer cameras have software inside so that when it starts acting up you probably need to reset the camera or flash the firmware.

 

[Chan Tran]

Nikon doesn't release any firmware to the public if they have any. Since you're not using DX (which could cause the problem due to intemitten DX contacts) so the problem has to do with the camera memory. The F5 doesn't have an internal battery so whatever information that it retained after power down has to be in flash memory. May be the flash memory has gone bad. Check and see if other settings changed like aperture and shutter speed etc...

 

[dhkirby]

Nikon doesn't release any firmware to the public if they have any. Since you're not using DX (which could cause the problem due to intemitten DX contacts) so the problem has to do with the camera memory. The F5 doesn't have an internal battery so whatever information that it retained after power down has to be in flash memory. May be the flash memory has gone bad. Check and see if other settings changed like aperture and shutter speed etc...

Hmm interesting. I'm wondering...I was using a new set of batteries and I noticed they might not have been giving the camera enough power - for example, I noticed that film advance and rewind seemed slower/weaker with these batteries in as well. I'm wondering if it's possible - since the camera has no internal battery, if it wasn't getting enough juice, would it forget the iso settings while off? Or would that not affect the flash memory? Apologies - I'm not a computer guy.

First thing to do is obviously put the old batteries back in and see if the problem persists. It just hadn't crossed my mind that this could be wrapped up in the power issue. As for checking changed settings like aperture and shutter speed, I usually set the aperture manually on the lens and let it meter shutter speed relative to that, so I didn't notice anything in the field. Checking it here at home it doesn't seem to have a problem remembering those settings.

 

[koraks]

if it wasn't getting enough juice, would it forget the iso settings while off? Or would that not affect the flash memory?

Flash memory is non-volatile. The data stays preserved if the device is powered off entirely.
User settings like ISO will likely not be stored in flash memory, but EEPROM. Same principle though - it doesn't need power to retain its data.
It's unusual, but possible the EEPROM in your camera somehow got corrupted. There may be other causes, but troubleshooting it would require knowledge of the internals of the F5 that only Nikon has.

There's probably not much you can do about this, sorry.