One of the reasons I left the Canon camp was their QC or consistent lack thereof.
I've had 5 D7K's over the last 15 months. 4 perfect out of the box and one clunker that was sent back cuz
every lens in the stable needed AF fine tune of some sort. Hell with dat. If all my glass is dead on with my
D2Xs (fine tune not an option) D300s and D3...I demand the same out of the D7K's Make 'em get it right. GL
I received my D7k back after 2nd warranty service and only comment I got from the technician was to use AF-lock more often. WTF!
Anyway, for the first hour or two hours it worked fine but as I tested it more and more it started to show its old face again. All samples use center focus point and on Nikon 50g f/1.8 (it shows also on other lenses).
What do you think? Is this just user error or not? The samples are handheld but I could handheld sample D800 with no problem so D7k shouldn't be much of a problem.
trenchmonkey wrote:
One of the reasons I left the Canon camp was their QC or consistent lack thereof.
I've had 5 D7K's over the last 15 months. 4 perfect out of the box and one clunker that was sent back cuz
every lens in the stable needed AF fine tune of some sort. Hell with dat. If all my glass is dead on with my
D2Xs (fine tune not an option) D300s and D3...I demand the same out of the D7K's Make 'em get it right. GL
+1!
Totally agree. That's about the percentage I roughly calculated too of D7000 having problems of various sorts.
I sent mine back under warranty and got the back focus fixed. But that is a pain to do with a new camera. Now the focus is fine.
When the D7000 is working in its zone, it takes some impressive pictures.
When the D7000 is working in its zone, it takes some impressive pictures.
I sent the D7K over with my best lenses to be adjusted and it helped somewhat. But still, even if I shoot 10 images high-speed of an inert subject the autofocus will change the focus. It's hit or miss though.
The finder is too small for manual focus - for me, live view + zoom is the only way to focus properly and reliably.
I believe that the D800 AF system is different, looking forward to that.
I had a D7000. Major backfocusing issue. Returned it to the store and tried a different body, same issue. So now I have a D700 and all is right with the world. Well not really but camera wise.
Cecilia C, please keep us informed as to what happens. I am also considering doing this. I have had my D7000 for about 9 months now and have never been totally happy with the sharpness. I came to Nikon from Sony and had s lot of really tack sharp pictures with my a700 and assorted lenses that I just have not been able to duplicate with the Nikon. I know this cannot be just the way it is.
Here are the NEF files I'm showing Nikon http://falcon-creations.com/d7000-focus/ you can download them to see if you see something I'm missing. It at least doesn't look right to me. See also the comparison from my old D80.
My D7000 requires a lot more fine tuning than my D700 did. Not sure why, and
I don't care - people, Nikon gives us the tools to fix it in AF fine tune - take 5-10 minutes per lens doing the tuning and taking mindless photos, then STOP and go shoot the fun stuff with it!
Don't understand why anyone would send back a camera so they have to use less fine tune - in the end it makes no difference in the IQ. As long as it's consistent and within the +20 -20 range, no problem! The D7K is an awesome sensor in a great value body and I think it's getting a really bad rap over a non-issue. It's Nikon's antenna gate
workerdrone, the problem is that the fine tuning doesn't work for my problem because sometimes my D7k focuses correctly and sometimes (more often) not. It is that inconsistency which are killing me and my trust in this camera.
If it's inconsistent in controlled testing, then I'd send it back immediately. That's why I jumped Canon and came to Nikon - inconsistent AF, not my fault, drove me batty. Nikon rocks in this department.
I'd just make sure you have a good target and conditions for your testing - I used a big piece of cardboard with a 'bar code' of black duct tape on it, outside - turned out to be just as good as the commercial lens align setup I tried later.
I did some tests, similar to what you see on the NEF files... but now on tripod. I tested Nikon 35mm f/1.8, Nikon 50mm f/1.8 G and D, Nikon 85mm f/1.8g
All these lenses were off in first shot but improved as I took more shoots, same subject/distance. The worst offender or which exposed the camera most was the 35mm, it took 4 shoots (focused from mfd) to achieve sharp target. The 85mm was ok on the same target but by focusing on another target further away it started to show same behaviour.
Don't quite understand the logic behind this behaviour, all photographs were on tripod with timer!
I took a look at a couple of your NEF's - problem is, I don't see anything usually terribly sharp in them, which argues to me that it's not missing focus but something else might be the issue. Like shutter speed, D7000 loves high shutter speeds.
I also see poor choices for AF targets for testing.
If you focus live view is it the perfectly sharp result you expect, using all of the same settings (shutter speed especially?)
Are you a good distance away for testing (7-14 feet for the 85mm lens example)?
workerdrone, well we can argue about poor choices for AF target but the reality is that 5 months here in Iceland are quite dark and often rather low contrast so if the camera can't handle these tests within acceptable accuracy then it is doomed even outdoors.
Like I said, my latest test was on tripod with timer and AF-S. It seems that accuracy goes up by using live view, however I use vf more so it needs to be acceptable.
At about 10+ feets the 85mm started to show similar behaviours as the wider lenses.
Accuracy should not just go up using live view, it should be 100% perfect every time. If it isn't, I'd say you definitely have an issue with either hardware or camera steadiness.
Personally I think the D7k may have an 'issue' with shutter vibration that is easily worked around with shutter speeds. I had some very blurry shots rested, self timer, on a beanbag with the 70-200 the other day that I don't think would have been blurred with other cameras I've owned. About 1/60th of a second IIRC. Handheld with VR on it was tack sharp. Weird.
I have send my notes and samples to Nikon to see what they recommend me to do. I was however very disapointed with the last remarks which the technician wrote on the repair sheet when I got it back from 2nd trip to Nikon. Something about using AF-Lock more or something.
I'm started to think I was just extremely unlucky to get such bad copy of otherwise fine camera. Hope my new D800 which I hope is on its way will cheering me up again.
***UPDATE*** Just got my d7k back from NIKON, already tested it with 2 lenses (50 f1.8g and a 35f2) under poor light condition (indoor and outdoor, both @f1.8/f2 and iso2000) and the quick results looking only at the camera screen are: STUNNING, SHARPER AND most important , ACCURATE than before, this means NO AF TUNE adjustment is needed at all.
Will test it with my other 2 lenses (85f1.8g and 20 f2.8), none of my lenses need any tune adjustment on my other camera (d700) so chances are they wont need it with my d7k either.
Until now Im very happy with NIKON service repair department, very fast turnaround, and seems that they made the coorect adjustment on my camera.
Hell with dat. If all my glass is dead on with my
All samples use center focus point and on Nikon 50g f/1.8 (it shows also on other lenses).