Can't quickly review images for D7000

October 25, 2011 6:08 PM

I can't view thumbnail images in playback mode on my Nikon D7000. What is wrong?

You should be able to simply press the "zoom - minus / ISO" button in playback mode, and the camera should treat you to a view of thumbnails. However, my D7000 stubbornly refuses to do so. Is there a setting somewhere that I might have screwed up? (I have tried resetting the settings, but AFAIK this only resets the shooting settings). No love from Google or the manual....

posted by bumpkin to Technology (6 answers total)

I just went through the gamut of options on all menus, and then tried my best to make mine not work either, but in the end all i could do was hit iso/minus through the choices until it became a calendar, then qual/plus to bring it back to large format.

I have John Batdorff's book on the D7000 in pdf form ("From snapshots to great shots") and i searched it, too, to no avail.

Maybe a firmware upgrade will kick it in the pants? I shudder (puns, ha) at the thought of having to reinstall firmware completey. I really hope the is an alternative to that.
posted by MansRiot at 9:59 PM on October 25, 2011

I'm not sure what is going on here, but your first step should be to do a master reset of the camera. This is described on page 151 of the manual. The condensed procedure is to hold down the QUAL and +/- buttons for two to three seconds. Note that you'll ultimately have to re-tweak any custom functions and user settings you've previously adjusted.

If this does nothing to fix the problem, you could try a firmware re-installation, as MansRiot suggested. While I doubt that this will solve anything, it's not a hairy procedure at all, as long as you follow Nikon's instructions to the letter. If you've never done a firmware installation, read the instructions several times before you start. It's not the most intuitive process.
posted by imjustsaying at 1:15 AM on October 26, 2011

Response by poster: I did the master reset, I think (holding the two buttons with green dots beside them). I had hoped that it was me missing something simple and stupid, because I don't really want to go down the firmware re-install route for the next few days. I'm travelling right now, and the thoughts of anything going wrong make me terrify me (plus it looks like you need a fresh SD card). I can live with the annoyance until back home, where hopefully I can get my local friendly Nikon dealer to hold my hand for it.
posted by bumpkin at 3:40 AM on October 26, 2011

Are you 100% sure you have images on your SD card? I know that sounds simple but perhaps it's not displaying anything because there's nothing to display.
posted by tommasz at 6:35 AM on October 26, 2011

Best answer: You've probably already tried this, but if not, this D7000 owner says that there are two display modes that won't let you see thumbnails:

When using 5 of these 7 review displays you can "zoom out" to see multiple thumbnails and if you press the "zoom out" button repeatedly you can see, sequentially, 4, 9, or 72 thumbnails and even a calendar style display that lets you see what images where shot on what day. Cool. But when in either of the two "Show Highlights" review image option modes smaller thumbnails and the calendar view are inaccessible. Why? I could NOT find this documented in the manual and it seems simply like a software bug. Little thing. But irritating and potentially confusing to many users ("Why can't I get to those thumbnails??").

If you're in "show highlights", you might want to switch review image options, assuming you haven't done it already.
posted by longdaysjourney at 1:50 PM on October 26, 2011

Response by poster: That's it! Awesome. And, totally undocumented.
posted by bumpkin at 6:58 PM on October 26, 2011