Problem with Nikon D3300

DanielMMS · 17 Sep 2016 at 10:16

Morning all.

My daughter has just started A Level photography for which we bought her a D3300 (recommended for the course). This has developed a slight problem as shown below. It seems this may have been caused by her dropping it or something to do with her spending endless days at the beach.

Basically there is a dark zone at the top which also appears in images.

I know absolutely nothing about cameras so are there any thoughts about whether this an easy fix or back to the shop?

Thanks in advance.

Holst1981 · 17 Sep 2016 at 10:25

I'm no expert but it looks like the mirror is stuck.

Can you use live view?

If it is the mirror its not something you can easily fix yourself.
May be expensive to repair

Columbo · 17 Sep 2016 at 16:15

Looks like either the mirror is stuck or the shutter is stuck over a 1/3 of the sensor. Either way it will probably need repair.

DanielMMS · 18 Sep 2016 at 18:06

Thanks guys. Off to the shop with the thing tomorrow then!

captainjack · 18 Sep 2016 at 19:06

Have you tried doing a factory reset on the camera
and also update the camera firmware. Maybe also worth taking the lens off and just watching to see if the mirror is moving up and down correctly use 1sec or bulb settings.
Get firmware here

Clum · 18 Sep 2016 at 19:41

You could try locking the mirror up, if the D3300 supports that.