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| (Nikon Zf Press Image) |
A short but perplexing story.
For Christmas my daughter bought a pair of electrically heated gloves for me. Not only do the palms and backs of hands have heating elements but also the fingers and fingertips. I've developed a bit of Raynaud's Syndrome in my right index fingertip which means when it gets cold my fingertip goes completely numb. Obviously, for a photographer it's problematic when your shutter fingertip becomes numb. In fact, in the past I have had to take my eye away from the viewfinder and look at my camera to see where to place my finger on the shutter button. Otherwise, I can't feel that I have my fingertip properly placed. The gloves have solved this issue for me.
The other morning I went out to photograph and to try out my new gloves. The temperature was in the mid-30sº F. The gloves worked marvelously and I didn't lose sensation in my fingertip. Yay! However...
I had my camera set for multiple frames per second as I was going to photograph an oncoming train. The train roared by and after making a number of exposures I dropped my camera down to my side while holding it in my right hand, as I normally do. While holding the camera the shutter started firing off. Huh? My first though was that maybe my finger hit the shutter button and I didn’t realize it.
I brought the camera back up to my chest and confirmed a number of unwanted exposures were made. Strange. But I wrote it off thinking that I must have accidently hit the shutter button with my gloved index finger.
Then, it happened two more times and in those instances I knew my finger was not on the shutter button. What the heck is going on?
I may be wrong but there seems to be only two solutions to this conundrum. First, I’m suspecting the electricity flowing through the glove’s fingertip created an electromagnetic field and when I gripped the camera in one certain spot on the body just below the shutter button the electromagnetism somehow activated the shutter. (I don’t think many digital cameras have mechanical connections between the shutter button and it’s activating the shutter itself. The X-T5 may be an exception to this since you can still use a mechanical remote shutter release.) I’ve never seen anything like this written or discussed and it deserves a bit more research on my part. I did find where someone wrote an article that electrically heated gloves can interfere with autofocus, but I didn't experience that issue.
Second, the camera is malfunctioning and the shutter is firing randomly due to some electronic error in the camera's circuitry.
After returning home I tried to recreate the phenomenon with my Zf, Z8, OM and Fujifilm camera bodies but was unable. Hmmm. Maybe it is the camera malfunctioning?
Either the gloves are causing this or the Nikon Zf is now malfunctioning but it has never acted like this previously and it hasn’t since. Weird. Have any of you experienced anything like this? If so, let us all know by leaving a comment. In the mean time, I’ll continue to wear the gloves and monitor if it happens again.
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Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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How are you liking the the Zf? Pardon me if I missed a review. I'm mostly M4/3 and playing around with a Df and various AF D lenses. The Zf looks so tempting though and then I think to myself, size, size ,size..
ReplyDeleteDan, I’ve written a couple of posts about the Zf. I’m sorry you missed them. The first can be found here: https://www.thewanderinglensman.com/2024/01/test-driving-nikon-zf-excellent-camera.html, and the second, follow-up post, can be found here: https://www.thewanderinglensman.com/2024/04/additional-thoughts-on-nikon-zf.html. My opinions have not changed since I wrote the last post. In short, I still like the camera enormously. I still think it gives me better all around image quality than any other digital camera I’ve owned and used. I still think the dials are not quite engineered as well as my X-t5’s, but once you get used to how everything works, all is fine. If you have any questions about the camera with which I can be helpful, you can find my email at my website and my website referenced in all of my blog posts. Alternatively, for uncomplicated questions and short answers you can post it here. ~Dennis
DeleteThanks, nice reviews. Having started with the FM, it is tempting and who knows, I might pick one up some time, but the Df gives me that old time manual film camera feel for fun and then there are those D lenses where one can go old school with the aperture rings. I usually shoot the Df with the AFD 35,2.0. Unlike the Df, the Zf definitely looks like a FM which to me is the perfect looking camera, LOL. Like yourself, M4/3 is more my taste these days for size and weight.
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