I'm getting a similar issue. What seems to happen is that the photo align works because I can see a vertice count and if i rotate the control sphere in the center of the viewport I sometimes see the pointcloud/mesh pop in and out.When i try to zoom it might appear to be VERY far away then snap closer and then disappear. This is my first go at the software but I feel that it has something to do with I am not rotating around the mesh but some other pivot point. I've seen similar issues for models too small in Maya.