D300 rubber front grip

Decided to replace the rubber front grip on my D300 as its coming away from the card slot end.
The actual replacement part is about £27 if anyone is going to do the same.
Did a little research on just glueing the existing one down but discovered that due to the grip material things like superglue or other stuff isn't advisable.

This material Nikon use for grips is absorbant to a certain extent so any moisture say off the hands 3eventually seeps through and unglues the grip from the camera body. Seems its a common complaint on not only the Nikon D300 but other variations as well.

Once the rubber grip comes loose it tends to spread a bit making it not very easy to put back in place



Wiith the research I discovered there is a small screw right up inside the battery housing which has to be undone as it screws into the grip, so a very small screwdriver is needs to undo it.

This is a link to the site I found showing this screw

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/29294785

Me being me I am reluctant to send the camera away for this "minor" repair so I thought I would have a go myself.

This photo of mine shows up where the screw is better (arrowed)


Now waiting for the part, coming apparently second week in April

Bazza

UPDATE

Well the new grip was so easy to fit it must be one of the easiest camera repair jobs to do

First I removed the lens and put the camera cover back in its place so i could stand the camera upside down. The next was to remove the battery grip and and remove the battery in the camera. Ok that then allowed me access to the screw that had to be undone. Next I held back the battery cover by just using a rubber band around it and the camera body.

My worry was the screw would fall into the camera body itself though one of the small holes but luckily the screwdriver or the screw itself was slightly magnetic and the screw was easily removed as it stayed on the screwdriver tip.

Right now removing the old front grip was just a question of pulling it off, dead simple. This then left the remains of the old adhesive on the camera body, so should I leave it or try and get it off? that was the next question. Well I tried cleaning it with meths but that had no affect so decided to leave the old resin and put the new grip over it.

Well the rest is the reverse of the removal and the whole job took less that 15 minutes.

Here is the result

Total cost £30 including PP, time without camera zero and a perfect fit.

To say how pleased I am with the result goes without saying. have to say it looks like Nikon have used a different adhesive to what the old grip had.

Inside of old grip

you can see the difference in the adhesive. The centre recessed is still good while the outside edges have had it.

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The photos above were taken with my Panasonic Hc-X900M Camcorder which takes stills as well as video. Either can be stored on the onboard 32 gig memory or an SD card or any of these combinations. I am in truth not over keen on cameras/camcorders with duel functionality but this camcorder does a pretty good job of both.

Same camcorder working under really difficult lighting conditions onboard cruise ship, note the sound quality as well. Any fuzziness is due to Youtube not the camera. Don't think there could be a much better camcorder test. Focus is spot on, no delay which is great and the colours stayed true as well. As I said I can't think of a harder test.

One thing I have learnt is Don't video without a tripod, handholding is really hard to keep steady which shows up in the following. The idiot behind the camcorder was the problem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD8BY...JBq6xQ&index=4

And under extreme indoor lighting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JTIv...ks5ErtToJBq6xQ



Bazza

Great bit of info bazza. I will keep this on file incase my d80 needs the same treatment