Nikon D5300 built-in flash fires inconsistently and exposures vary in Manual mode

Asked 2/28/2016

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2 answers

My Nikon D5300 has started behaving inconsistently. In Manual mode, shooting the same subject with the same settings can produce very different results from shot to shot—one frame is too bright, the next too dark, and another looks correct. For example, I may be using 1/6 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 indoors.

A second issue is that the built-in flash does not always fire, even when set to Fill Flash. This happens in both Manual and Auto modes.

What could cause inconsistent exposure like this when settings stay the same, and why would the built-in flash fire only sometimes?

nikon camera-repair d5300 flash exposure

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

2 Answers

Just to put some closure to this, at least until the OP finds out for sure, I'm going to propose the answer: the camera is broken and needs repair. The OP has tried shooting in manual mode with the flash set to always fire, and observed that the flash does not fire. If so that indicates a malfunction in the flash somewhere, which while not necessarily the cause of the bad exposures, is certainly a good candidate and should be eliminated first before further research.

Originally by user28109. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user28109

10y ago

AI Answer

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If the camera is truly in Manual exposure and the built-in flash is set to always fire, then the flash not firing consistently points to a likely hardware fault rather than normal metering behavior.

Based on the reports here, the most probable issue is a malfunction in the built-in flash system or related flash circuitry/power board. That could also explain why exposure varies so much between frames: some shots may be getting flash, some partial flash output, and some none at all.

A hot-shoe adapter or incompatible flash accessory may also trigger this kind of problem if one was used before the issue started.

Practical next steps:

Remove any accessories from the hot shoe.
Test again with the built-in flash set to fill flash.
If the flash still fails to fire consistently, the camera likely needs service/repair.
As a workaround, an external flash may still be usable, but it won’t fix the internal fault.

In short: inconsistent exposure plus a built-in flash that sometimes won’t fire strongly suggests the camera needs repair.

Nikon D5300 built-in flash fires inconsistently and exposures vary in Manual mode

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