My D70s is Broken, No it's not, Yes it is, No it's not....

I bought a D70s for £12, reported not working: 

This camera is broken!! It powers on but won’t take pictures. From what I can remember some kind of fault sign comes up on the display.

It arrived and I bought it originally as for £12 it was a great Camera to learn on, maybe teardown to see what's inside, it also had a Hotshoe Cover, turned out to be an original BS-1, regardless of internet stories of people losing these, I've never lost one since I've been using Nikon from the 90's!, the DK-2 was dodgy but works, screen was umarked, top screen was clean and unmarked, I have another working D70 that would be a little nicer with those bits added and considering just the cost of a genuine BS-1, which is BS! £12 looks like a nice find whatever happens to it.

No sticky grips or unusual wear or marks, not bad actually, pins were fine and clear so I grabbed an old Jessops 256mb CF from the box of, where did that come from and pushed in a fresh battery and it works!

What!

Well it sort of works but throws up another possible solution to a non issue that I see sometimes, as an example:

If you look in certain places it'll report several times that they think their Cameras are broken, one common read is that the LEDs in the viewfinder of the FE flash between 90/125 and think it's broken, it's not, it's a method of letting you know you aren't at the first frame on your film of choice, there were no fancy viewfinders or top screens with overloads of info, for me it seems like it's a simple misunderstood check, made that way, probably documented somewhere but everyone forgot to read, so is misinterpreted as a fault.

So, back to the D70s, so after a reset, I fired off a few shots and pressed Play > The screen was full of colour, wait a minute now, it's not supposed to work, hang on, so I take the card and put it in the other D70, and voila....nothing, 'No images blah....' Eh!

So I take some pics with the D70 and they show up as normal, put the card in the D70s and voila....No images! Stop right now, put the card back into the D70 and voila, the pictures I took with  it filling the screen, that's silly.

So what is happening, obviously a compatability issue, if you tried the wrong card in the D70s it didn't work, the Firmware on the D70 is at v2.0, the D70s at v1.0, but don't forget the v2.0 is reported to be very similar to v1.0 on the D70s as it came out later and is a newer model so started at v1.0 but some think it's almost the same as the D70's v2.0 as they are mostly the same camera.

But is it, I took some pics and plugged the Camera (D70s) through USB in both modes into the Laptop and the pics I took with the D70s that doesn't work, are there, if I put this card into the D70 they aren't, so is it a Firmware issue or SW issue or Card design issue, sometimes using newer equipment with older gear might seem like an improvement on paper but paper isn't real life and it just doesn't work properly sometimes.

So as long as I use the same card in the D70s it works, if the card is put into the D70 it doesn't, I just think the seller used the wrong type to test or wasn't nosey enough to look further, I also have 2 x F50's that cost £6 for both, they arrived, reported broken and both look like they've never been used, one even has a Data back, so I ordered the obscure CR-2 to make sure they tested with the correct power, it arrived and both work apparently!

The 'err' sign does appear on the tiny gameboy reminiscent screen when you don't have a Lens attached, that's deliberate I think, not a true error! As soon as I attached one they sprang to life, not sure they like the more modern VR lens but they liked the 50mm (Non D) I tried, AF works, all settings worked, viewfinder shows changes, flash guns work, they don't 'auto' pop but don't think that was a thing then so....Have to double check.

I did notice one thing, if you change lenses whilst the Camera is on, it sometimes locks up and you have to take out the battery, being that it does it a lot when I tested I think it's just an electronic mismatch and the Camera complains, going from a older AF to a newer one with signals it's not expecting is not a good idea methinks.

So my broken Cameras aren't broken really, they are it seems, just a result of not doing enough looking or just people who aren't bothered, which could be seen as a good thing especially as a buyer, thanks guys for being so not bothered.

*Here are the actual Cameras.

*I do have some more testing to do with the D70/D70s to confirm my thoughts so will report back if and when.

I will try more cards inc a more modern card, plus some formatting tests to see if that effects how the cameras read the cards.

I might even go as far as to read the docs as sometimes reported errors can be resolved as it could just be a mistaken limitation.