Old Nikon D70 dying. Corrupting / not recognising memory cards

[deadkenny]

My Nikon D70 has for a while now been struggling to recognise CF cards with FOR, CHA and similar errors. Remove and insert a few times and it reads it right and can shoot okay. Now it's regularly corrupting files or the whole card. Think the card slot is dying. Tried various cards, old and new.

Checked the slot and no obvious damaged or bent pins. Gave them a clean best I could with some IPA (not the beer ) but no help. Apparently the reader can die or the ribbon connector internally can come loose or get damaged.

Though I should stop removing the card and use USB cable instead (slower than PC's reader), but it keeps coming up with the errors and have to remove and reinsert the card to fix that.

Worth trying to fix it or bin? I'll probably get a new camera anyway but I hate throwing away good kit that's just got small faults (actually it has a stuck sensor spec also that I can't shift but I can work around that). I'm still in the world where decent cameras should last a lifetime. Spending a fortune for a pro repairer though isn't worth it, so may look at DIY fix but if it's very fiddly and complex then maybe not.

Reason to keep it is to have an old chuck about camera for MTB and skiing, though it might be why it's got problems as it gets rough handling . A shiny new camera I'd be more reluctant to stick in a backpack. Although would be nice to have decent frame rate or video functionality for action shots.

Not really asking for a solution, just mulling over what to do

 

[wee jake]

My Nikon D70 has for a while now been struggling to recognise CF cards with FOR, CHA and similar errors. Remove and insert a few times and it reads it right and can shoot okay. Now it's regularly corrupting files or the whole card. Think the card slot is dying. Tried various cards, old and new.

Checked the slot and no obvious damaged or bent pins. Gave them a clean best I could with some IPA (not the beer ) but no help. Apparently the reader can die or the ribbon connector internally can come loose or get damaged.

Though I should stop removing the card and use USB cable instead (slower than PC's reader), but it keeps coming up with the errors and have to remove and reinsert the card to fix that.

Worth trying to fix it or bin? I'll probably get a new camera anyway but I hate throwing away good kit that's just got small faults (actually it has a stuck sensor spec also that I can't shift but I can work around that). I'm still in the world where decent cameras should last a lifetime. Spending a fortune for a pro repairer though isn't worth it, so may look at DIY fix but if it's very fiddly and complex then maybe not.

Reason to keep it is to have an old chuck about camera for MTB and skiing, though it might be why it's got problems as it gets rough handling . A shiny new camera I'd be more reluctant to stick in a backpack. Although would be nice to have decent frame rate or video functionality for action shots.

Not really asking for a solution, just mulling over what to do

why don't you get another d70 should be cheep or a d200

 

[Nod]

TBH, any D70 is going to be knocking on a bit and might well develop the same problem before too long. Personally, I'd avoid a D200 since there are far better bodies available for not a lot more money. As nice an idea as it is, modern cameras aren't as long lived as older (fully manual) ones.

 

[Phil V]

As nice an idea as it is, modern cameras aren't as long lived as older (fully manual) ones.

I agree about getting a newer camera

I think we ask a lot more of digital cameras than film SLR’s. All but the busiest pros in the old days could count their annual output in the thousands rather than the tens of thousands as is commonplace now even for hobbyists. Exceptions being sports / news photographers who used to buy cameras built for abuse and retire them after a couple of years.

I remember reading a Litchfield article in the 80’s he was considered to ‘overshoot’ at the time and would burn 100 frames in a day for a single calendar image / cover shot.
A hundred frames!! Imagine?!?

I recently shot >100 frames for a work photo competition just to exercise the creative muscles.

I’d shoot 3 rolls of 36 at a wedding in the 80’s and we expect to shoot up to 3000 frames at a wedding in 2020.