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 p.1 #1 · Nikon USA Factory - $89 Premium Maintenance experience | |
Sharing a recent positive experience with Nikon service in the USA, hope this will be of value to others.
I have 2 D500s which, since new, never focused any lens wide open well, until I used Auto AF Fine Tune and the Focal Pro software to adjust each lens to each body. Both are now going on 3 years old, and about 60K clicks on the shutters.
Since the majority of my work is wide open, high iso sports/action shooting, I depend this capability to work. I have got along just fine, or so I thought. My setup was different in both D500s. The AF Fine Tune settings varied depending on the lens, but were mostly all in the negative (-8 to -17) range to make work, and neither camera's settings matched the other with same lens ever.
Through another post out there on the internet, I read about a D500 owner, sometime within the last 3 years or so, who had some issues with his camera and sent it to be checked and cleaned and paid extra for the full service, and had the "Advanced Image Testing" and "Computer Calibrate Autofocus System" performed. He said when he got it back, it was better than new and never autofocused better and required ZERO AF fine tune settings, he had to turn the function off after the calibration was done. This got me to thinking, since it was time for service anyway... I should get this done and see if anything changes.
As a NPS member, I had sent cameras in before for Check and Cleans, but the AF calibration was not being performed in that step, but I saw it as an option on the Invoice, so I wondered WHY this wasn't very clear or considered? Nikon USA has changed the check and clean service to being called Factory Maintenance starting in January.
Link: https://www.nikonusa.com/en/service-and-support/factory-maintenance.page
As NPS, the Premium package is not what you get with NPS membership, it's the Standard package, so, after asking about this in an NPS support question, I found out that I need to request regular service and use my NPS discount to get this Premium service performed by Nikon, and with NPS you get expedited turnaround on this work.
So, took a chance, and paid the about $100 total (with discount) on one D500 camera in which had never been back to Nikon since new which was the oldest and the most wonky with it's AF performance. About a week later, it came back spotless and fully back to Nikon Factory Specifications and the printout that shows everything that was done (see Nikon's link below for what they do).
The very first thing I tried was a lens that previously would not work with any setting, it was beyond -20 it seemed. The lens was dead on tack sharp with AF Fine Tune turned off. Next lens, perfect, next lens and so on and each time WOW, it's dead on perfect, no matter which lens I put on it (even long primes, with a TC14EIII) are all dead on perfect with Auto AF Fine Tune turned off.
All I I can honestly say that the camera has NEVER focused as accurately or as consistently as it now has since I sent it in for the service. I went ahead and sent the second one in, and it came back, exactly the twin in terms of performance, just came back a few days ago.
In closing, if you are interested in this for your bodies, they must 1) be under factory support still (like a D3/D4 is too old) to get the service.
An example photo below is with the calibrated D500 and the lens that never worked with this body, an old very sharp, screw drive, AF 180mm F2.8D ED lens that was not able to get a sharp wide open image before the calibration.
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