Picture image will not display

Zz_Renegade_zZ

Ok, while I'm still pretty new to the D3100, I am slowly figuring out all its nuances. Strange thing happened last night. I was at my son's baseball game taking photos and things were working out well.

I was using the sports setting, then all of a sudden (and since then) I took a photo and nothing displayed, just a black screen.

I can see the shot in the viewing eye piece, I can flip over to Live View and see the image just great on the screen, I can zoom, focus, and take the shot just like normal, but no "image" is on the screen. I'm hoping its a silly setting issue, but not sure.

Has anyone ever had this happen or can you provide any insight into the proper troubleshooting?

bruto

Chances are that there is a setting gone off, and the exposure is not right. If you were on the Sports setting, most things are set by it, but one thing you can alter is ISO. If the scene was dark and you accidentally set it to ISO 100, it might underexpose so much you get a black image.

If the blank screen images have a number, it means the camera recorded a black image. If you go to the playback menu, and open up the display options, you should find there, a setting for "overview". Check it, and then when you push the preview button, you can open that window by pushing the up arrow on the camera control. This display option shows the basic camera settings, and also an exposure histogram. You can check to see if there is an odd setting, and look a the histogram. It's a graph which should show at least some information from the left to the right sides, with the bulk nearer the middle. If it's all crowded to the left, it's a sure sign of drastic underexposure.

The Live view screen does not reflect the actual exposure you'll get. Some cameras have that as an option but this one does not. The LV screen has its own exposure compensation so that you can see an image, even if your exposure setting is impossible.