Nikon D610 camera drop - viewfinder not working.

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Hey Everyone! I'm an American Professional Photographer traveling the world right now, and I'm currently in Indonesia. A few days ago in Thailand my camera took a fall off of my camera strap, and fell about two feet onto concrete. Everything about the camera worked and functioned properly except that I could not see the focus square through the viewfinder. Yet, in the info menu, I could see that the camera still recognized the function, it simply did not display it through the viewfinder, but still displayed the grid that helps you "center" your images.

I tried to pull the battery for 30 seconds to "reset" the camera, but this only made the problem worse.

Now the viewfinder is completely blurry, and displays no brackets, grids, or displays, except for the Shutter Speed/ISO/light meter on the bottom, which is in perfect focus (thus, it's not the diopter). AF still "works", but no matter what I do, I can't pull the image into focus through the viewfinder (both Auto and Manually).

If I open Live View, the camera auto focuses perfectly, and displays a crystal clear, normal functioning image.

I'm stuck. Any ideas? If anyone knows of a camera repair shop in Bali, please let me know. I have no plans. So, I could sit here and surf for a few weeks if I need to.

Closest Nikon Headquarters are in Jakarta, but I'd like to leave here into India soon.

So if anyone has any suggestions, perhaps even DIY repair (please don't yell at me for saying that - ha), please let me know.

Thank you all,

ET

bruto

It's very hard to diagnose, but my guess is that the focus screen or the mirror has been disturbed. It's likely to be pretty risky to try fixing anything, but it may not be beyond the capability of a competent camera repairman even if not a genuine Nikon shop. You might be able to see what's up by removing the lens and seeing if the mirror or viewfinder appears to be skewed, out of place, or damaged.

The mirror mechanism is pretty delicate, so I would not recommend doing anything with it.

If the viewfinder screen has come loose, this might be possible to re-position, but I'm not familiar with the way it goes in in this camera. If it's clear that this is the problem, you might try a google search for D610 viewfinder replacement, which may, incidentally, tell you how it clips in.

Live View AF uses a completely different system and reads AF off the image plane, which is why it works OK even though the viewfinder is messed up. You should at least be able to make some pictures.

Sorry, I don't know any repair shops out that way.