I love my D800. Admittedly not as much as my Fuji, but it’s a great machine to work with. For a while now since getting several gigs as a Poledance Photographer I’ve taken to shooting tethered via Adobe Lightroom. Now, due to not being able to afford a fast laptop (D800’s are expensive…) I make use of a loaner machine, a rather lovely Dell XPS15 (2013 model). Prior to the Windows 8.1 update everything was running smoothly, but after the jump, the D800 stopped working.

On connecting the camera you’d hear the “USB Device Connected” chime, but it would only display in device manager with a yellow /!\ exclamation mark and would not show up in windows explorer. In device manager the camera would show up as a code 28 “Driver not installed”. I knew there was an issue with the MTP driver, but couldn’t get Windows to “forget” the device to install a clean version. Nikon blamed Adobe (And in fairness, verified my exact setup on their own machines as working), Microsoft blamed Nikon and asked for $99 to remote desk to the PC to investigate it, and Adobe? Well, it turns out Adobe don’t DO customer service. They have a “user forum”, where you can sit and wait for the wind to answer your questions and that’s about it.

I wouldn’t be blogging this if I hadn’t fixed it, so what was the fix?

  1. Disconnect the camera, run USBDeview and remove the camera from here. You should see it listed as a not connected Nikon D800.
  2. Install the MTP Porting Kit. I’m not sure if this is required, but I did it anyway. Reboot.
  3. Reboot into safemode, then run “sfc /scannow” at the commandline
  4. Reboot normally, then reconnect the D800. You’re not done yet, as if you have my issue, it will still be registered as a code 28.
  5. This is the important step. In device manager, open the D800 then “Update the Driver” for the D800, and select “Browse my computer”. Select “Let me pick from a list”, then scroll down looking for “Portable Devices”.
  6. (If you don’t see this, hit “Have Disk” and point it at c:\Windows\Inf\wpdmtp.inf )
  7. Now select (Standard MTP Device) from the left column, and MTP USB Device in the right. OK everything, even if you get warnings.
  8. Reboot. Hope for the best.
  9. If you’re lucky, the MTP driver will now install correctly. What I think is happening is the MTP association failed originally and it was impossible to “purge” the driver associations from Windows. Forcing the issue by convincing it that it really is an MTP USB Device seems to work.

    Bizarre? Yes. Frustrating? Immensely. Resolved? Yes.

    As a bonus tip, if you have trouble with Lightroom not detecting your D800, open Lightroom and go to File->Plugin Manager – disable the Leica and Canon tethering plugins if you don’t need them. I found the Leica tethering application was firing up and blocking the Nikon one from detecting successfully, your mileage may vary.

    An additional bonus tip, sometimes killing the tether_nikon.exe process in task manager can encourage LR to gets its act together and play nicely. Sometimes.

Camera That Can Refocus

Monday 1414hrs

Someone mentioned to me a while back about some guy developing a camera that could refocus images after the exposure had been made, using “Some gizmo containing loads of lenses”, or words to that effect.

Well, here’s Ren Ng’s Standford website about just such a development, a Lightfield Camera.

The maths is heavy, but the basic principle is fairly understandable and the videos on the website are illuustrative. Don’t expect this stuff to be creeping into compact cameras anytime in the next few years, but it’s certainly a very interesting development.

Holy WTH Batman?!

Tuesday 0023hrs

OH NOES!

I have *finally* got my upload script in to some kind of functional state. It’s way off being releasable and the public gallery code isn’t nearly finished, BUT, at least for now I can get images coming back onto my site again.

It’s been FAR too long and I have a back-catalog now of about 2000 or more photos to go through, so I am going to be uploading at a fair rate. Don’t blink or, if my intentions remain true, you’ll miss them.

Photography Pricing

Thursday 1054hrs

Following a discourse in good old channel #Webdev, it ocurred to me that although my work is for sale (Yes, it is true…) it’s not nearly well advertised enough. In fact the only mention of it is in my website FAQ which thanks to its lack of advertisement no-one seems to read. (I get a fair number of emails , one could say I received them frequently, asking questions which are answered in the FAQ.)

The willpower to put up a full-blown automated sales system is not within me, not only that but I really don’t want to turn into a bargain-basement stock salesman which, if you sell images above 1024×768 is rapidly what you’ll become, afterall, no-one gives a crap about photographic rights these days anway. On the flipside, I’m not actually selling anything anyway at the moment so you could argue something is better than nothing. Would the images find their way into the public domain? Would someone use them as their own, build them into a website, print them in a brochure or a flier after paying only a small fee to “Use it as a desktop wallpaper” ?

One line of discussion was about music and the way in which an awful lot of people don’t pay to listen to it.
Read the rest of this entry »

Twist of Lime

Monday 1024hrs

I finally got a new photo out! Admittedly it was under duress from a self-imposed deadling, but nobody is perfect. I’ve had a fair number of people asking me for a wallpaper version of this image, if you would like one then please contact me using the “contact me” form on this website, or leave a comment on this thread. It’s available in sizes down from 1600×1200 to 1024×768 for CRT users and 1280×1024 for the TFT crew.

Copy, Right?

Thursday 0000hrs

A site was forwarded to me a few moment ago, it was this one, it’s got something to do with a tennis website.
The most interesting part of the article was a section toward the bottom of the document, which reads as follows…

To deter Webmasters from using these photos on other Webpages or using them outside the above permitted uses, I have been advised to set a scale of standard charges for unauthorised use. This makes it extremely easy to obtain significant damages for unauthorised use of the photos, by applying the legal process from any court in a country that is a signatory to the Berne Convention, most Countries in the world have signed this convention.

The scale of charges are:
250 US dollars per Week per Photo, starting from the date of the infringement.
Unpaid bills accrue interest.
Expenses incurred by myself and the collection Agency, in the collection of these fees are also chargeable.

I think that’s a rather good idea myself… Read the rest of this entry »

That’s what the lady in my latest photograph is saying. Honest… 😉
This is one of the few shots I got off before the ignorant security gorillas

I can’t remember her name, but I’m on the lookout for it. If anyone knows, please get in touch so I can update everything.
Who knows, maybe I could make it as a sports photographer, providing I get some anti-gorilla spray 😉

Way to go ZimmerFrame (That’s one of the parties responsible for my existance, by the way) for picking out Francesca Schiavoni as the angry tennis player. If I gave out prizes, you’d be in line for one 😉

Leeds Photographic Society?

Wednesday 1112hrs

Just thought I’d share with you the results of Leeds University’s centenery photographic competition. In the interests of fair play it looks like they barred arts and photographics students from entering, narrowing the field to those more familiar with academic subjects, like myself.
It’s a shame nothing like this ever ran at Loughborough uni, if it had perhaps I wouldn’t be seen resorting to desperate fund raising tactics.