3 photos came out completely black

[Mike_P]

I took hundreds of photos this weekend at a sporting event and 3 of them, all in a row, came out completely black. I'm trying to figure out what happened.

I was switching between one of the memory modes where I had the settings for sports photography (burst shooting/various focus tracking options) and the aperture priority mode.

The three photos I took were a group portrait and all three came out black in both the RAW version and JPG version. I would have not chosen my memory option because I would have ended up with multiple photos from the burst setting, so I was probably in aperture priority mode unless I turned the selector knob accidently to another mode. I noticed in the EXIF data that all three had 30 second exposure times. My best guess is that somehow I accidently chose some setting that forced this long exposure time and that I then put the lens cap on as it was recording the image. But I can't seem to find which setting might have done this.

All of the photos I took after that came out normal. Any idea of how I might have accidentally chosen a setting that would have created a 30 second exposure? I believe there was a backlighting situation with these three photos and I was using the exposure compensation dial. Could that dial have had another setting that I accidently chose? Thanks!

[thebeardedgroundsman]

This may sound silly, but these things can happen.

If you camera was set to burst shooting in aperture mode, could you have accidentally knocked the shutter release while you had the lens cap on, or the camera was in a bag?

This could account for the 3 exposures and the 30 seconds is the maximum exposure if not set on "bulb", so if the camera was trying to take an image with zero light this exposure would have happened in aperture mode.

An accidental exposure like this would account for you not noticing an issue at the time.

[Mike_P]

Thank you for your reply. I didn't realize that 30 seconds is the maximum exposure- so that's one part of the puzzle. What you proposed is very interesting except that the three black photos were three photos that I took of family members standing against a fence. So those were the blacked-out images.

I do remember taking my camera out of the bag at some point in the day and I had left the power one and it was somewhat hot. I had never done that before. I read somewhere that the camera sometimes fires off some photos in order to cool off the sensor. But again, it doesn't account for the fact that the black images were created at the same time I took those 3 group photos.

But you information about the 30 second maximum exposure time gives me some more information to help figure this out. I just want to make sure there isn't otherwise a problem with my a6400.

[FunWithCameras]

If you load those images and boost the exposure by a lot (maximum), do you see anything at all? If so, maybe you accidentally changed the aperture to f/16 or f/22 (the maximum on the lens)? The dial next to exposure compensation would be controlling the aperture in A mode…

If you see nothing, then chances are you have lens cap shots.

[XKAES]

My first thought is that something on the camera was inadvertently set incorrectly -- as mentioned above.  That's easy to happen, and one reason to check pictures AFTER they  are taken -- because pictures can turn out "bad" for lots of reasons.

My second thought is about your camera getting hot.  I'd figure out what's going on there -- regardless if it is connected to the black images or not.  A camera getting hot is not normal.  My camera manual has notes about what to do if my camera gets hot.  You should check your manual as well.

[Mike_P]

FWC- yes, I did indeed do that and it appears that the image is of a very consistent tone. I was hoping to see something there. I too thought about accidently taking photos with the lens cap on, but I do remember the short preview of my image showing up in the viewfinder after I took it. This situation wouldn't be so confusing if the 3 shots were extra shots. But they would have indeed been the 3 shots I took of family members in a group photo.

Is there any way I could have accidentally set something so that a 30-second exposure was warranted, only to then take 3 photos and put the lens cap on before all three photos were recorded by the sensor?

XKAES- I almost always check the images after I take them but I was at a track event where I took a family photo, then immediately needed to run to the other side of the track to catch my subject in action  

My camera usually shuts off too quickly if I leave it on, so I was surprised to take it out of my camera bag and it was still on. It was an extremely hot day, and I otherwise never had it run hot by itself.

I appreciate everyone's help in this matter.