D500 spookily changed itself from RAW to JPEG Fine!?!

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James C.

James C.

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I was shocked just now when after importing my photos from a nature walk that I took this afternoon, that they were all JPEGs!

Until a month or so ago, I shot in RAW+JPEG Fine on my Nikon D500. I realized that that was taking up space, so I changed it to just RAW. I've since taken hundreds (perhaps a couple of thousand) photos in RAW. I haven't changed ANY settings in the D500's menus since that time.

What could POSSIBLY have changed my settings?? (I'm kind of ticked because I took some nice photos of a Red-tailed Hawk today but they're only in JPEG now!)

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks for your insights.

p.s. I'm shooting onto a Lexar 64 GB CFE-b card that I got for Christmas.
 
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So, how are your cards set up right now? I've never encountered this issue except when I've changed settings to JPEG for an external application and forgot to change them back to NEF when I finished my task.
 
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Wayne is not alone in the forget to switch back depaartment. I did forget to switch back to Raw when I had switched to jpeg to do in camera HDR ... other than that the only thing I could think of was some sort of weird hiccup when the camera firmware was updated so you could use CF express cards. Grasping at straws NEF(RAW) is right next to JPEG fine ... kind of like a typo if you click one to many times on the selector :) a puzzle indeed.
 
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Ken Miracle said:
Wayne is not alone in the forget to switch back depaartment. I did forget to switch back to Raw when I had switched to jpeg to do in camera HDR ... other than that the only thing I could think of was some sort of weird hiccup when the camera firmware was updated so you could use CF express cards. Grasping at straws NEF(RAW) is right next to JPEG fine ... kind of like a typo if you click one to many times on the selector :) a puzzle indeed.
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Ken, I am wondering if the firmware issue could be the problem.

I've also noted another problem just the other day in that the "Easy Exposure Compensation" function on my D500 doesn't seem to be working, either. I have tried playing with it in the past 24 hours and I notice that it doesn't reset my EV back to 0.0 when I turn off, and then turn on, my camera. This is suspicious.
 
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James C. said:
Ken, I am wondering if the firmware issue could be the problem.

I've also noted another problem just the other day in that the "Easy Exposure Compensation" function on my D500 doesn't seem to be working, either. I have tried playing with it in the past 24 hours and I notice that it doesn't reset my EV back to 0.0 when I turn off, and then turn on, my camera. This is suspicious.
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I do not use "easy exposure compensation" and have it turned off in menu b4 ... if you have your camera set to On (auto reset) then it should reset when your standby timer expires or you turn you camera off. However only those changes made using easy exposure compensation will be reset. If you use the ev button on top to make changes as I do then those will not be reset until you change them. And as Jake said above the change to image quality can be set in certain custom control assignment settings. So you might go to your menu and check f1 custom control assignment and see if you have any of your buttons etc. set to change that function.
 
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Backdoor Arts said:
Is it possible you have a button that's set to change Image Quality when depressed and a wheel spun? If so it could have just been an accidental change when you were trying to do something else.
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That's what I think is one of the most likely alternatives that could have happened. I don't own a D500, so I can't tell about default setup of the buttons, but things like that happened to me a number of times - and still do - , not only with the Quality option but also with the format. In my case it was a mixture of things:
  • Learning curve about the options for customizing the camera setup to make it fit my needs was overlapping with the learning curve about the best way utilizing the camera intuitively while shooting.
  • Being prevented from using the cameras regularly enough to get acustomed to the setup changes.
    This was a problem especially when using cameras with bigger differences in button layout.
    Getting in difficult shooting situations where a button gets pushed accidently while trying to adjust another setting.
  • Packing away a camera that is not switched off.
  • Missing discipline of bringing temporary settings back to normal after the situation requiring the special settings has ended.
    Especially regarding the Quality setting this happened to me after doing AF fine tuning, where I use JPG Fine.
 
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Whiskeyman said:
So, how are your cards set up right now? I've never encountered this issue except when I've changed settings to JPEG for an external application and forgot to change them back to NEF when I finished my task.
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My cards are set for the CFE-b card to be the primary and the SD card to be the overflow.

But as I mentioned, when I changed my camera from RAW+JPEG Fine to just RAW a couple of months ago, I NEVER went back into that menu. This is strange.

I have written to Nikon and am awaiting a reply.
 
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The image quality can also be changed by holding the QUAL button and rotating the main command dial. The RAW to JPEG is only one click of the command dial. Could a case or bag be snug enough to hold the QUAL button down and the command dial was rotated one click when the camera was removed from the bag?
 
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MartyD said:
The image quality can also be changed by holding the QUAL button and rotating the main command dial. The RAW to JPEG is only one click of the command dial. Could a case or bag be snug enough to hold the QUAL button down and the command dial was rotated one click when the camera was removed from the bag?
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EUREKA!

I think THAT'S how it happened! I had been fiddling with the Release Mode dial and the Command dial one day when I was out taking photos.

Thank you! I think the mystery has been solved!
 
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