Kittyk wrote:
So all my four D800s had focus issue, i tried to send one in, twice, came back not fixed. So i didn't bothered to send it in again until end of wedding season.
On end of season i sent two to clean up and mentioned the focus issue. They came back not fixed, though cleaned up. Ok i said, it is pain to live with. In January one my D800 started acting up, on camera flash stopped working and AF ON one button. Had no time to send it to get it fixed yet. Today started second D800 act up. In M mode it is changing shutter speed sporadically when AF-On button is pressed.
How come all my D90s, D300s, D700s were perfect but with all recent gear, lenses, flashes, cameras are more and more troubles?
If there would be any D700 to be sold, i would throw this POS to trash can and buy 10 of D700s and call it a done for rest of my life.
I would be crazy to buy any expensive camera or lens from Nikon with this experience.
GRRRRRRR!
Sorry, no need to answer or comment, was just vent off after really bad day....Show more →
Sorry about your troubles.
Here is what I think why Nikon has gone down hill.
It seems to have started after they lost millions of $$$ from the floods that distorted there factory's.
Nikon is now a depressed mess and don't care about there customer. All they care about is recouping there loses and are rushing stuff out as fast as they can and this is why the QC and CS suck now.
Nikon (much like Canon, Sony, etc) is a corporation that exists to profit a small number of already-wealthy people. In this respect, they don't differ from most other corporations. Their cameras are overpriced and underchecked, as are most cameras from most manufacturers on the market. I get around this by never buying any camera gear new, both to reduce the ridiculous markups, and as a matter of principle. I'd suggest doing the same.
i of course know that companies are here for profit and not our cute eyes, but in good old days was at least valid that they were trying to make perfect product and win customers through that.
now? they see that nobody cares, people buy because they release it. negative press is fought by huge global market which generates enough revenue regardless.
Not that canon or any other company is better, i am just sick of being a test rabbit when my lifehood depends on the gear.
Oh I agree with you completely Kittyk. Nikon's increasing QC issues reminds me of Apple. I used to buy Apple laptops, and that company is notorious for making test dummies out of their early purchasers. As a result, I started buying only refurb products since I knew someone would have checked them (unlike the new products), and then eventually ditched Apple entirely for cheap PC laptops to run Ubuntu on.
tobicus wrote:
Nikon (much like Canon, Sony, etc) is a corporation that exists to profit a small number of already-wealthy people. In this respect, they don't differ from most other corporations. Their cameras are overpriced and underchecked, as are most cameras from most manufacturers on the market. I get around this by never buying any camera gear new, both to reduce the ridiculous markups, and as a matter of principle. I'd suggest doing the same.
You sound very familiar with the production of Nikon cameras. I take it you have worked in the industry and have a lot of first hand experience. I'm curious what specific aspect of the production is underchecked. There are a lot of people out there who repeat things they hear on the internet, so it would be great to hear some good first hand information.
Most companies have/had "hiccups", for me is one basic rule of thumb is that don't buy newly released model of the car, camera, phone, etc.. till the early adopters come with the feedback...then i can make decision...
LarryBoy57 wrote:
Makes me wonder if Nikon wouldn't benefit hugely by bringing back the D700. It seems as there is no true replacement for it and with the quality problems of their newest models, this would sell as well as when it was first introduced. I'd be interested for sure.
diamondsdr47 wrote:
Most companies have/had "hiccups", for me is one basic rule of thumb is that don't buy newly released model of the car, camera, phone, etc.. till the early adopters come with the feedback...then i can make decision...
+ 100
But the D800 has been out for a year I think. Should be 100% by now.
But the D800 has been out for a year I think. Should be 100% by now.
Should be, but it's not. I'm still hearing bad reports about focusing problems and a good part of the problem is Nikon's attitude. They refuse to admit there is a problem and it seems like the subsidiaries are doing whatever they can to remain in full denial mode (see other threads here about impact damage). Poor initial QC can be overcome to a great degree by good customer service/repair but these days, the poor initial QC is being compounded (insult to injury if you will) by crappy customer service, bad attitudes of customer service reps, repair facilities trying to abdicated warranty responsibilities and a general "we don't care" attitude as long as we are selling gear. Things like this don't bode well for Nikon's future and I hope they get themselves straightened out soon. I doubt it, but I still hope......
lukeb wrote:
But the D800 has been out for a year I think. Should be 100% by now.
"Should be" has caused me more frustration than any other pair of words in the English language, I believe.
In reality "should be" is the same as "don't know" but I always want "should be" to mean "is".
Real sorry to read about this. Sadly experiences like this has become all too common with Nikon. Looks like either the Thailand flood has done some serious damage to their QC level or in their quest to gain market share Nikon has forgotten about QC.
Something to keep in mind is that Nikon is dependent on a lot of suppliers. Not everyone is a Samsung.
tobicus wrote:
Nikon (much like Canon, Sony, etc) is a corporation that exists to profit a small number of already-wealthy people.
Nikon is a publicly-traded company with nearly 400,000,000 shares outstanding. I don't have any way of knowing how concentrated or diluted the ownership structure is, and I don't think that you do either. Sounds like prejudice and bias to me.
And if you think Sony is making any long-term owner wealthy...
Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
Nikon is a publicly-traded company with nearly 400,000,000 shares outstanding. I don't have any way of knowing how concentrated or diluted the ownership structure is...
I have to jump in, here. The bitchin' and moanin' is just getting to be too much!
Over the last 5 years, Nikon has given us a whole series of, "the best cameras in the history of photography", along with a slew of lenses worthy of those cameras. If they hadn't brought out anything this year, they still would have been competitive in the market, but, probably to try and placate a forum full of snivelers, they pushed too fast to recover from the tsunami.
Nikon didn't rush to market in order to satisfy whiners, etc. Nikon needs to do this in order to keep up with what Canon is doing. If Canon wasn't working to advance the technology, Nikon wouldn't need to either. Don't exactly see that as a good thing. Perhaps Nikon tried to do too much too soon after the flooding in their plants. Hopefully they'll get things pulled together.
" I would be crazy to buy any expensive camera or lens from Nikon with this experience."
That is my sense also. I have had it with Nikon. The abysmal QC and concommitant silence/denial is insulting to its devoted customer base. What I have is what I will use. As to additional bodies down the line, absolutely not So too as to lenses...Sigma offers more than enough viable alternatives as long as I keep and use the Nikon bodies I now have.
Mike or Rita,
I find that link very disturbing. To think that Banks, and insurance companies are holding such a large percentage of stock - after what they have done to the world economy over the last 4-5 years. It certainly does not inspire confidence in me. Yet, all my gear has performed as advertised. If the percentage of defective equipment is high - I would think class action lawsuits would be a good remedy.
tobicus wrote:
Most recently, the part of the production that ensured D600s didn't splatter oil all over their sensors when taking pictures.
I only respond due to your implication that the issues with Nikon are because of a small group of wealthy and greedy people. Do you have any idea how publicly traded companies work? Those 6 investors are NOT a "small number of already wealthy people". They are large institutional investors who represent and invest money for thousands of other people either directly or indirectly. Granted large private investors are part of that group.
41.56% of their stock is held by Japanese institutional investors. 31.58 % is held by foreign shareholders, most likely other non-Japanese large investment houses. Only 8.57% is held by individuals. I state this not necessarily to defend that system but to correct your emotional and biased statements.
There is, in fact, a considerable down side to being a public company. That is, that there is tremendous pressure on CEO's and the rest of executive management to perform in the short term. This leads to decisions that often sacrifice long term corporate needs for short term profits, and logically, stock performance. Large investors may or may not be in for the long haul but they want the stock to rise in every quarter. This pressure can create an environment where product is pushed out the door before it is ready, warranty terms become stricter, and overall cost cutting becomes the current "mission". Obviously, the complexities behind the hows and whys of corporate decision making is beyond the scope of this forum, but it should suffice to say that the issues Nikon is experiencing right now can not be condensed into a simple; "its because they're greedy" or "they don't care about their customers any more" one liner.
Balancing the needs of a company's source of capital with those of customers and employees is almost never easy, but is sometimes impossible. Hopefully, Nikon will sort it out over the next year or so. In the mean time, they have brought out some exciting products not all of which have problems.
Based on the shoddy quality of the gear they're dumping on the market now, I guess Nikon must have decided to eliminate QC to keep costs down. It's much cheaper to let customers do the product testing...
So too as to lenses...Sigma offers more than enough viable alternatives as long as I keep and use the Nikon bodies I now have.