Beautiful, beautiful, just #$%^&ing beautiful.

Sometimes something or someone is so far out of plumb that you start to question your own sanity. Tell me it's not me, please.

I sent some pix to Nikon technical support of my new-to-me D800 focusing with its left, center and right focus points. Back focuses a little on left, a little less on center, and front focuses on right. Don't know, though, if it is enough to worry about.

Anyway this back from technical support just now. Names are redacted to protect the ignorant, uh innocent. And the reply came not within 24 hours, as Nikon says it should, but rather three days later. Anyway:

Dear XXXXX XXXXXX,

Thank you for contacting Nikon and sending us some sample images. We have reviewed your images. Please try shooting in an exposure mode other then aperture priority and use matrix or center-weighted metering. Shooting in aperture priority and spot metering will cause parts of the picture to be out of focus. If changing the camera setting does not resolve your issue please try resetting the camera to its factory default settings.

If you have any further questions please click on the link above this email and reference incident number XXXXXX-XXXXXXX.

Thank You,
XXXXX
Nikon Support

I just called technical support, and the guy who answered asked if I had tried the suggestion and then said the person who wrote me the email would call me back within five or 10 to explain what she was talking about. Should be interesting. This really happened. Honest.

Idiocy seems to know no bounds these days.

I am in awe.

You can't fix stupid...........(you tube that for a very good laugh)

Really?? sitting here shaking my head, wondering what those folks are thinking.... Bad enough that the first one sent you that in the email, but then the 2nd one acts like it's for real?

You should send that to Thom Hogan. He would appreciate it greatly, I think.

Kerry

That reply sums up how horrible Nikon has let its "customer service" become. I've read other similar examples. They don't seem qualified to give advice about P&S let alone $3k DSLRs.

That's world class stupid.

It's not YOU, Garth It's ME I shoot A mode /Spot easily 90% of the time. I hardly ever miss. Now, I'm
absolutely crushed to hear I've been doing it all wrong since wrappin' my hands around the D800. Crushed.

trenchmonkey wrote:
It's not YOU, Garth It's ME I shoot A mode /Spot easily 90% of the time. I hardly ever miss. Now, I'm
absolutely crushed to hear I've been doing it all wrong since wrappin' my hands around the D800. Crushed.

I hate to tell you, you've been doing it wrong all these years Trench.

You mean all those well-focused photos ere errors? AW Sheeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiittttt!!!! Back to the drawing board,

No call back after four hours, so I called again. The gal that answered said she and an advisor would look at my pix and call me back. About an hour later she did call back and said the info and pix would be emailed to a "Level 3" advisor, but that, with the holidays, I probably won't hear anything more until midweek. It is pretty obvious that the Level 1 people, if that's what they are called, are not very well versed in this stuff.

Garth Oldham wrote:
No call back after four hours, so I called again. The gal that answered said she and an advisor would look at my pix and call me back. About an hour later she did call back and said the info and pix would be emailed to a "Level 3" advisor, but that, with the holidays, I probably won't hear anything more until midweek. It is pretty obvious that the Level 1 people, if that's what they are called, are not very well versed in this stuff.

the first level of customer service reps are just there to read from a script and hope it fixes your problems, pretty much with every company.

Pay minimum wage for a call center dood, and you get a minimum wage call center dood (who probably also hates your company's guts, and wants nothing more in life than a better job... somewhere else).

Please try shooting in an exposure mode other then aperture priority and use matrix or center-weighted metering. Shooting in aperture priority and spot metering will cause parts of the picture to be out of focus

What? Did I read right? Is this for real? This looks like Google Translate gibberish likely on a japanese Troubleshooting script. You know kinda like "The harmonious haze in the house one used to live child young..." when it was suppposed to be describing the bokeh of a flower?

Please try shooting in an exposure mode other then aperture priority and use matrix or center-weighted metering. Shooting in aperture priority and spot metering will cause parts of the picture to be out of focus
Damn, they're absolutely correct I focused on Mikey's face and everything else is OOF Yeah, you KNOW it was A and Spot

I like the way the Sigma renders pudding

I sent a CD with some NEFs along with my 30/1.4 to Sigma with the hopes that they could look at the image and see a pretty obvious focus problem. I got a call back indicating that the lens was better than anything else they had in the shop(!!) and that they had no idea how to open NEFs. At least Nikon pretends to look at the pictures.

Nikon tech support never did get back to me. The camera went back to the retailer this morning.

Hopefully they will get the message that some people are not buying the camera because of stories like this. Do they have horrible service to save money or something?

Nikon finally sent me an e-mail about this:

"Hello Mr. XXXXXXXX

Thank you for contacting Nikon, As we review your images, we do not see any issues with the images you have sent in. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact Nikon again. Your reference incident number is XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

Thank You,
XXXXX"

The pix showed a pretty obvious problem. And I sent them to Nikon tech support about two weeks ago. Anyway the camera was sent back four or five days ago, so, yeah, I guess there is no problem anymore.