I dropped my Nikon d3100, can someone diagnose the issue?
I dropped my Nikon d3100 accidentally, must have been 2 feet from the ground.
When I try to take a picture it comes up with a black "box" in front of the photo.
I can only see a sliver of the photo across the top!
When I take off my lenses and try to take a picture, the bottom left mirror clip seems to have broken and the mirror pops out of place.
I know it's obviously broken but does anyone know what happened and can explain it to me in detail? Mirror got knocked out of place?
There could be a lot of things wrong with the camera. The only way to find out exactly what is wrong is to either take it into a Nikon authorized repair center OR send it to Nikon to get a repair estimate.
A fall like that could haven even cracked/broken a circuit board along with the obvious mirror clip issue.
STOP right now. Your mirror has either come off it's mounting frame or is damaged. If you continue to press the shutterbutton with the mirror in that condition, you'll cause further damage to the camera, specifically the focusing screen.
Sounds like the mirror, which is supposed to flip up out of the way at the moment of image capture, isn't raising up completely. The result is that only the bottom part of your image is reaching the sensor. Since optical lenses reverse the image (to be corrected by the software within the camera), it shows up as a sliver of your picture at the top.
Take your D3100 immediately to an Authorized Nikon Service Center, not Walmart or Best Buy. They'll just send it to the same center, but add extra time and a guaranteed sales pitch on top of it.
http://www.nikonusa.com/...-List.page
You now have a $550 paper-weight. You dropped it, you broke it.
Do we need to tell you what happened? Your camera dropped. It's broken. What else is there to know? Bring your camera back to the store you bought it from. They should either bring the camera to the authorized service center themselves or point you to the right direction. Be prepared to spend a lot.