Garth Oldham wrote:
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.

Nikon support center is a joke. Honestly coming from Canon I thought it was a big joke. The secret is to keep trying. If you have a lot of time and money to waste keep sending the camera back without waiting for them to analyze your image. Eventually they will get it right.

It is shocking to know Nikon support actually handled your case the way they did. At least the Nikon support over here has been competent so far and long may it continue.

I just e-mailed Nikon support an over and out:

"No problem. Yes, there was definitely a focusing problem, but I solved it myself. I sent the D800 back to the retailer I bought it from, in part since I could get no help from you. This case was open with little contact from you for about two weeks, give or take. And, while I have you on the line (so to speak), I want to take the opportunity to tell you that your technical support really, REALLY sucks. I mean you have gotta be right down there on the bottom, pretty much by yourself. Maybe you are in shouting range with HP though. Anyway have a good day. I'm confident this e-mail will not cause you to break stride. And I am going to copy it to Fred Miranda."

The HP reference pertains to help I was trying to get yesterday from HP "tech support" (and I continue to use that term loosely) to set up a wireless connection to my new color Laser Jet. I also have a new laptop, and Painter keeps crashing on it during auto paint cloning. So, long story short, I spent most of yesterday on hold, trying to get to the "right" tech support people at HP, Asus and Corel. One HP person would try to help me for a while and then, out of frustration I suppose, tell me that he (or she) didn't support that particular printer and then hand me off to someone else.

I think the Fates must be against me. Maybe I was a real bad bugger in a past life, and the bill is coming due. :o)

Garth Oldham wrote:
I just e-mailed Nikon support an over and out:

"No problem. Yes, there was definitely a focusing problem, but I solved it myself. I sent the D800 back to the retailer I bought it from, in part since I could get no help from you. This case was open with little contact from you for about two weeks, give or take. And, while I have you on the line (so to speak), I want to take the opportunity to tell you that your technical support really, REALLY sucks. I mean you have gotta be right down there on the bottom, pretty much by yourself. Maybe you are in shouting range with HP though. Anyway have a good day. I'm confident this e-mail will not cause you to break stride. And I am going to copy it to Fred Miranda."



Interesting to send that to Nikon after you got rid of the camera. Unfortunately, Nikon does not know how many people are not buying their products because of reading about the lack of good service.

Seriously I hope you sent this to Thom, he loves to post about this and he has a big audience.

Honestly, if your company is so big you have to hire "level 1" screeners reading from a script, it's too big. I'm not into the mass production culture. Make them right, make 47 of them a year, put your own phone number on the support page, and stop screwing up my life. If I could I'd shoot nothing but Red and Leica.

hmm, D600 has oil/debris problem and D800 has focus problem, so which one we should pick?

"Level 1 screeners" ...

Nikon, like many if not most companies these days, seem to have out sourced this first level of contact ... that is, the first human level after you manage to get through the endless automated prompts (which seem designed, no matter which prompts you select, to get you to either a canned list of "FAQ", or a place to leave a voice mail ... i.e. dead letter box).

Unfortunately you have to push past these people "on the spot" by demanding that they escalate the issue. First step is to ask to speak to their supervisor (who is in reality just another screener), then ask to speak to the manager, then to someone actually at Nikon. If you are willing to persist, invest the time and patience, you may be able to get to someone who is actually a real Nikon employee AND has some level of knowledge.

That's no guarantee, but at least you are at the same place we used to start at long ago when companies didn't outsource support, and the first person you spoke to actually worked for the company.

I had to launch a 2 month campaign to get my D800 left AF defect fixed ... conversations with management at Nikon USA, a dozen detailed emails, 2 trips to Melville.

Canon service was better, but that was a half dozen years ago, so who knows today. I don't see any evidence that any manufacturer is trying to do anything in this area but reduce costs ... outsource, make the customer jump through more hoops in the hopes that most will just give up.

These days we need to test a new camera or lens thoroughly (which we shouldn't need to but anyway) so if there is an issue it can be returned because their support is so useless.

Definitely send this to Thom.

Saying stuff like "sux" or "gotta" might have less effect as something say "disappointed" or "frustrated" or "management review" and here's the one that gets companies to look at "customer dissatisfaction". Well unless if you are Apple.

D800 has more than just focus issues, it has the green tint LCD and odd AWB quirks.

I don't remember the d700 has had so much problems. Is this because of the location where it is made? Hmm...

D800 is made in Thailand as well?

Jun Zhou wrote:
hmm, D600 has oil/debris problem and D800 has focus problem, so which one we should pick?

To be honest, I'd rather have oil than focusing issue. Oil is good, even cars need oil. Heck people even invest in oil stocks

Jun Zhou wrote:
D800 is made in Thailand as well?

No, D800/E is made in Japan.

So's mine! No oil, no focus probs., clean livin'

M Lucca wrote:
Saying stuff like "sux" or "gotta" might have less effect as something say "disappointed" or "frustrated" or "management review" and here's the one that gets companies to look at "customer dissatisfaction". Well unless if you are Apple.

D800 has more than just focus issues, it has the green tint LCD and odd AWB quirks.

I don't remember the d700 has had so much problems. Is this because of the location where it is made? Hmm...

I think you'll find that the new batches of D800/E do not have any of the issues that may have affected a few of the earlier batches.

I had a D800 since May 2012, from the first batches, and it did have the far left focus issue but only with my 85mm f1.4G and only at apertures under f2.8 and only with distant subject matter. Did it bother me? No, as I rarely use the outer most focus point on the 85mm f1.4G at distance. However, I did end up getting Nikon to "fix" it and it now only does it very occassionally and not enough to cause me any concern.

The left AF "issue" never affected any of my other lenses whatsoever, 16-35 f4 VR, 14-24 f2.8, 35 f1.4G, 24-70 f2.8, 70-200 f2.8, 105 f2.8 micro, 300 f2.8 VRII, 500 f4 VR and if it were to be a concern then it would definitely be an issue when birding as any misfocus is glaringly obvious.

My D800 never had any other of these so called "issues" ie no AWB issues and no green tint issues, it was faultless in every other regard.

However, I have since purchased a D800E but only because I wanted that slight extra resolution advantage for birding etc and to make post processing easier due to less/no sharpening required. This new D800E is absolutely faultless, no left AF issue whatsoever, every lens I have tried so far is spot on for AF fine tune, no green tint (not that my first D800 had green tint either) and even the AF seems to be a tad snappier as a seat of the pants thought.

It would seem as though Nikon has sorted out the left AF issue with the latest batches of D800/E's as it seems as though there are a lot less/no complaints from batches made recently, ie not the refurbs or old stock being sold on.