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I was at the racetack when my d70 took a crap. The top lcd was flashing on and off, no AF, no metering, no anything other than shutter release. I tried quick reset, remove/replace battery, full reset, remove/replace lens, on and on. I fought with it for about 30 minutes before I stuck on my wholly useless (at the ractrack) 50 1.8. No errors, so it had to be the 70-200. I put it back on, same error. After another half hour, for some reason or other I ran my finger around the mount and across the contacts pushing them down fairly firmly. Everything worked fine. Later in the day I had the same problem and the solution worked again. The contacts are by no means dirty, loose, damaged or orthwise different than normal. The body is the same. Haven't had the same error again. Anyone experiecnce this or have any ideas???

thanks

Andy

Andy,
I haven't had that problem but came across with similar problems before on number of my customers with the D70/ 70-200VR, 80-400VR, somes AF/ AF-S/ or heavy lenses.
1/ Both contact pins might get dirty (Not your case) = Clean them.
2/ Mis-allignment contact pins between camera mount + lens, that why some lenses have some movement after mounted on the body= Send both items back to service center.
(Yes, I agreed, in naturally it has some movements but it also caused problems as you have and with few bodies, especially with the mount on the body of the D70).
3/ NEVER attached the 70-200VR or other big, heavy lens onto the D70 while in transit or in the bag, cos shock or dropping the bag with the minimal of "G force" might create problems later.

If problems still, send both of them back to Nikon Service Center.

Birddog114 wrote:2/ Mis-allignment contact pins between camera mount + lens, that why some lenses have some movement after mounted on the body= Send both items back to service center.
(Yes, I agreed, in naturally it has some movements but it also caused problems as you have and with few bodies, especially with the mount on the body of the D70).

If problems still, send both of them back to Nikon Service Center.

Actually, now that you mention it, my lens does move about quite a bit. I heard this was fairly normal, maybe mine is excessive. I'll check it out, thanks!!!

Andy

No problems with lenses yet but I have had problems with the SB800 not making proper contact. First happened a few weeks ago when I turned on the camera and SB800 and took a shot that turned out to be 10 seconds instead of 1/60th.

Took it off and put it on again and all OK but has happened a couple times since but I check now before shooting.

Andy, try using a pencil eraser to clean the contacts

sirhc55 wrote:No problems with lenses yet but I have had problems with the SB800 not making proper contact. First happened a few weeks ago when I turned on the camera and SB800 and took a shot that turned out to be 10 seconds instead of 1/60th.

Took it off and put it on again and all OK but has happened a couple times since but I check now before shooting.

Chris, Mr Poon's D70 has this problem too. Contacts were cleaned, but sometimes rocking the flash back and forth on the hotshoe seems to correct it.

Onyx wrote:

sirhc55 wrote:No problems with lenses yet but I have had problems with the SB800 not making proper contact. First happened a few weeks ago when I turned on the camera and SB800 and took a shot that turned out to be 10 seconds instead of 1/60th.

Took it off and put it on again and all OK but has happened a couple times since but I check now before shooting.

Chris, Mr Poon's D70 has this problem too. Contacts were cleaned, but sometimes rocking the flash back and forth on the hotshoe seems to correct it.

Thanks Chi - will try that next time

I've noticed quite a lot of rotational movement with my 70-200VR. If you move the lens, you can see about 5mm of rotational movement in the viewfinder.

Birddog, thanks for the tip about transportation. Sometimes I didn't bother to take if off and kept it in the bag on body. I also have travelled with the thing sitting on the passenger seat while I hoon around trying to photograph things Guess I should stop that too.