Why can't I get the Whitebalance preset to set? (D800)

Quasar

Ok,

So I know how to do it. Press the WB button and move the dial to Pre, then use the sub-dial to move it to d-1, d-2, d-3, or d-4. Then let go and Hold down the WB button a couple seconds until it blinks and shoot a gray-card.

It's worked in the past but for some reason now it will never blink PRE so it won't shoot the WB. I can get it to work only by taking a picture of the gray-card, then navigating the menus and assigning a pic to a WB preset.

I don't have bracketing or HDR or Active D-Lighting enabled and it's set to single shot P. I've tried manual and autofocus, nothing seems to work.

Is my D800 bugged or is there some setting I'm overlooking? I've tried removing and replacing the battery and it doesn't help.

Quasar

g4 was set to Assign Shutter button.

I don't know what happened. It was working, I didn't change any settings; now it's not working.

So I tried to hold Qual & +/- buttons to reset the camera (like the manual says, for 2 seconds). I hold it for 2 seconds nothing. I hold it for 30 seconds nothing. I hold it for a minute, still nothing.

"The camera settings listed below
can be restored to default values
by holding the Qual and +/-
buttons down together for more
than two seconds (these buttons
are marked by a green dot). The
control panel turns off briefly
while settings are reset."

Quasar

@Ironheart

Lol. Yea the power was on.

I think the camera was glitched. I took the battery out for an hour and put it back in and the reset worked, and now the white balance is working again.

I have no idea what caused the problem.

So it's working normally again. I guess the first time I took the battery out it wasn't for long enough.

Ironheart

How long did you take it out the first time? Curiosity killed the cat... Glad things are back to normal :-)

Msmoto

Battery fully charged? Some of these things only worked with fully charged battery.

FlowtographyBerlin

@Ade: I thought you were kidding with the assign shutter button, so I looked it up in the manual... Doesn't that only apply to live view in video mode?

@Quasar: Wow, weird things can happen. Glad it's working again. Should you ever figure out what the issue was, do post it here.

Ade

Weirdly enough the g4 "Assign Shutter Button" setting must be set to "Take Photos" -- regardless of the LV mode (video or stills) -- even though one can't actually change the WB presets while in Live View.

There is also a way (from deep in the menus) to protect the WB presets so they can't be accidentally changed. When protected, the PRE indicator will similarly refuse to blink when the WB button is held. But I don't think this was Quasar's issue -- the WB protection should survive battery pulls & resets, and a "PRT" indicator should have been blinking if the protections were in place.

Quasar

@Ironheart Hmm, somewhere between 1-2 minutes I think. I figured that be long enough to clear any memory, but I guess I was wrong. I'm not sure what the least amount of time is, but I know 1/2 an hour worked for me.

@Msmoto The battery was 3/4 full. I'm not sure what was causing it to hang up, but I don't think it was that.

@FlowtographyBerlin If I figure it out I'll make sure and let you all know. Hopefully it won't happen again. I might need to update my firmware I think.

Golf007sd

My PRE Manual White balance is not working properly. I hold the WB button down and the PRE does not blink and it does not activate the d-1 (or any of the temporary locations in the PRE section of White Balance. In other words I cannot do a Custom White Balance. Not sure if I have some wierd setting which overides or if I have a more systemic problem.

Steve