Nikon D800......

PaulButler said:
If you have sent it away to be fixed, then it will be fixed and won't be an issue at all.
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They are sending me a different body and taking it up with Nikon themselves. The new body is still second hand so hopefully this one will turn out to be fine. That's prob worked out best case for me as long as the replacement camera is ok.
 
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the_local_jacko said:
They are sending me a different body and taking it up with Nikon themselves. The new body is still second hand so hopefully this one will turn out to be fine. That's prob worked out best case for me as long as the replacement camera is ok.
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Good news, hopefully it will be fine - then you can get to enjoying it!
 
twist said:
What happened in the end about the charger?
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Unfortunately no charger as I'm getting a body they had listed for £150 more than the one I actually ordered originally. I could have maybe pushed this point more but to be honest I'm quite happy they have done a straight swop and if its ok then I may end up with a better body out of it. Just ordered a charger from amazon.
 
twist said:
Good result by the sounds of it, are they testing the af?
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We will see when it arrives. They asked for sample images and instructions on how I did my tests which I sent them in an email. I think they plan to build it into their checks in future hopefully starting with the new body they are sending me. :-)
 
Camera found! Sent to Nikon today. WEX had it and some idiot obviously doesn't know how to read a computer screen
 
My replacement D800 just arrived and I can report that on initial tests it appears to have no obvious focussing issues. I will hopefully give it a run out tomorrow to fully test (well as much as I can with half battery life until the charger arrives). Looking forward to exploring what it's capable of. Jumping from a D90 is a big leap. :-)
 
Well m not 100% sure yet... 85 1.4g looked okay from a few shots.. Took the 50 1.8g out this afternoon and its very soft all over even with the centre point, it's noticeable even on the back screen with still objects.

Will run them all through FoCal and see if that helps. If not back it goes.

I hope it's just the AF has been tuned for the better and the 50 is now out, if not its come back 10x worse than it went in.
 
Been subscribed here for a while but just picked up a D800 at Dixons Duty Free yesterday (the 60 day return policy swung it for me). Haven't had a play yet, but looking forward to it over the weekend.
 
psybear said:
Been subscribed here for a while but just picked up a D800 at Dixons Duty Free yesterday (the 60 day return policy swung it for me). Haven't had a play yet, but looking forward to it over the weekend.
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off on holiday soon so will be stopping at duty free. Did you get a decent saving over standard UK prices?
 
It was £1799, down about £21 from when I last checked. If you are serious about it, you'd be better calling ahead. Their stock is very limited. I was in Birmingham airport last week and they had none. They checked stock online and I think there were just two at Heathrow (all terminals). Terminal 1 had just the one yesterday and it was new stock. Takes them a week to 10 days to move stock between shops if you are ordering ahead.

The 60 day refund means that you can take it back to Dixons/Currys on the High Street if you change your mind.
 
psybear said:
It was £1799, down about £21 from when I last checked. If you are serious about it, you'd be better calling ahead. Their stock is very limited. I was in Birmingham airport last week and they had none. They checked stock online and I think there were just two at Heathrow (all terminals). Terminal 1 had just the one yesterday and it was new stock. Takes them a week to 10 days to move stock between shops if you are ordering ahead.

The 60 day refund means that you can take it back to Dixons/Currys on the High Street if you change your mind.
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Thanks. Its Gatwick that I am flying from. Will do a check few days before I fly :thumbs:
 
Noticed that the date/time on my new D800 was set to April 2012. Is it normal to have to change the set-up date out of the box? Checked the shutter count and it was definitely at zero when bought.
 
psybear said:
Noticed that the date/time on my new D800 was set to April 2012. Is it normal to have to change the set-up date out of the box? Checked the shutter count and it was definitely at zero when bought.
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April 2012 was probably the date set in the firmware, as it is the release date of the body. Yes it is completely normal to have to set the clock on purchase. It will also drift over time and is worth checking regularly particularly if you sync two cameras.

I'd also suggest you check you have the latest firmware installed in that case as well.
 
I see, thanks for that.

Firmware: A:1.00, B:1.01, L: 1.006 - so that appears okay.
 
Not had a chance to do any proper self testing yet, but decided to run the camera and 85 though focal.

Before I sent it in it came up needing -2 on the 85, this time it was leaning towards the +20 end until it came up saying there were unexpected results and needed to add more points, this happened again and it said it may give a un consistent result , I carried on though then it decided that it needed to test out with the MA range(needed up 40). So turned it off...

Will get it re tried again tmr when I can get some time away from the kids, but this is defiantly not looking good.Im away to Asian again in 3 weeks as well.

If this is worse I'm going to contact the shop I bought it from and demand it refunded even though its going on 6months on. Will get trading standards involved if needed as I don't think it acceptable that one of the main components does not work as it should and got worse after returning it to the manufacturer for
 
Ran my 50 and 24-70 though FoCal today and did some shooting outside with the 50.

The 50 is totally out of focus @ 0 MA, @+20 is still slightly out with real shooting.

On FoCal the 50 said it needed +26 MA(was -2), the 24-70 needed +17MA @70mm( was -12MA.

seems they stopped the left side being soft now my centre point is Back focusing extremely.

Going to be a day of phone calls tmr to the shop, nikon and to get advise from TS.
The shop said they would not refund me when i purchased it if it showed the AF issue and i would have to send it to nikon..How ever checking the TS website you can demand a refund or replacement for faulty good within 6months and repair for upto 5 years(in scotland ,up to 10 in england) if the expected life is longer and its not user damage.

Will see if nikon try and use there normal impact damage chat with me.
 
I can't wait to get mine back. That sigma 35 is absolutely off the charts. Such a beautiful lens and incredibly sharp at 1.4
 
pmac said:
Ran my 50 and 24-70 though FoCal today and did some shooting outside with the 50.

The 50 is totally out of focus @ 0 MA, @+20 is still slightly out with real shooting.

On FoCal the 50 said it needed +26 MA(was -2), the 24-70 needed +17MA @70mm( was -12MA.

seems they stopped the left side being soft now my centre point is Back focusing extremely.

Going to be a day of phone calls tmr to the shop, nikon and to get advise from TS.
The shop said they would not refund me when i purchased it if it showed the AF issue and i would have to send it to nikon..How ever checking the TS website you can demand a refund or replacement for faulty good within 6months and repair for upto 5 years(in scotland ,up to 10 in england) if the expected life is longer and its not user damage.

Will see if nikon try and use there normal impact damage chat with me.
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Its a well known issue, I bet nikon just tell you to send it in for repair.
 
They well do but I'm going to fight for a refund or replacement.

The fact they made it worse, not better installs no confidence in them as far as I'm concerned.
I will be going for replacement/refund as I'm away for a month to Asian again in 3 weeks and can't have the camera returned for a second time not working.Before I sent it in the AF was 10000x better and I could have lived with it, though I should have had to.

And I don't expect to spend nearly £2500 on a faulty item.
 
Any links to your AF testing methods please.
Do any of your cameras have AF issues with serial numbers greater than 606***** (not sure on the exact number of digits) but start 606.
Dave
 
nikonuser said:
Any links to your AF testing methods please.
Do any of your cameras have AF issues with serial numbers greater than 606***** (not sure on the exact number of digits) but start 606.
Dave
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Also keen to hear how best to test for these focusing issues.
 
It is sad that Nikon still has problem fixing this and the hesitancy in Nikon acknowledging of this problem with their flagship product... I have been holding back on buying a D800 and this does not inspire much confidence.. What % of D800 suffer with left focus problems and how successful are Nikon at fixing these?
 
Nobody will ever know the percentage, its not supposed to affect many after Sept 2012, reading on the web I found Nikon fix the majority but a few need to go back again, I guess it depends on the technician you get stuck with and if its a Friday afternoon job.

If you buy used you return for replacement or refund, if you buy new you test in store or send back via distance selling regs. Imo you really dont need a chart or any complicated procedure to test for it, just take shots wide open at the extreme AF points, youll see if its off by zooming in on the LCD.
 
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nikonuser said:
Any links to your AF testing methods please.
Do any of your cameras have AF issues with serial numbers greater than 606***** (not sure on the exact number of digits) but start 606.
Dave
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I posted a thread asking the same question a week gone Friday and got some great advice. I tested mine and it was immediately obvious that there was an issue just by looking at the back of the LCD and zooming in.

Sorry I'm on the iPhone app so can't link to the thread but if you look at my history or search "d800 focus" you'll find the thread.
 
mine was a sep 2012 604*** model, and was still usable before sending it in.The left side was just softer than the right and middle, not even as bad as some ive seen. But still there none the less.

twist is correct, most come back perfect but a few seem to come back worse.The US users seem to have more issues than UK users with this.

It is a rather sad state of affairs to be honest..no one can disagree(even a lot of canon users) that the d800 is a great camera and beats all other cameras in its class, but they are shooting them self in the foot by not having this issue sorted. I know its made users sell up and move to canon or canon users not make the jump this way.

I never returned mine at the time of purchase as there was a back log due to the olympics and i was leaving for china a few weeks after buying it, also it wasn't that bad as long as i didn't use the left side much.

phoned trading standards and clifton cameras this morning.

trading standards advised me to contact the shop and manufacturer. Im going to see what the shop do regarding this issue,they seemed very helpful on the phone.They were going to contact nikon to see about getting a quick repair or even the chance of replacement(i don't hold my breath though)

With nikon it could get more complicated as its down to there terms of warrantee, and i would need to get a 3rd party i think to confirm the AF was out then. i would have a case for refund or replacement as its not up to standards.
 
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twist said:
Nobody will ever know the percentage, its not supposed to affect many after Sept 2012
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I did read where serial numbers greater than 606**** are OK
 
twist said:
A lot manufactured before then are also okay.
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But that is the doubt that Nikon are not stamping out, what serial numbers are affected and what are not. :shrug: If they just came out and said that serial numbers from a-c may have problems, but from d onwards we have fixed the problem, they would get it all out of the way.

Nikon's quality control recently has been very poor, and their unwillingness to acknowledge any problems makes the look incompetent and/or arrogant in their silence about anything being wrong. :nono:

Maybe they don't know, or are continuing to to have problems, which is even worse. :shrug: Having a class leading camera(s) will only let users, and potential buyers overlook so much. Continue to have problems and ignore them, and people may start to think twice about getting a Nikon.

And as for a 2nd hand D800, think very carefully. :thinking: Through how many hands, and for how long, will Nikon fix any AF problems? :shrug:
 
Google is amazing.

http://falklumo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/photokina-2012-nikon-talks-about-d800s.html

• Nikon has acknowledged, found and understood the root cause of the issue. It has been eliminated in the current production (however, I guess we'll never know when and from which serial numbers on).

• The root cause is a misalignment of the AF module when mounted, outside of Nikon's own production tolerances. But be asserted we are still talking micro meters here ...

• The fixing procedure for Nikon is a tedious one. It includes writing individual calibration values into the firmware. For larger deviations, the AF module will first mechanically be re-aligned. This may actually include the AF auxiliary mirror in some cases.

• Nikon does actually not know how many D800 of the early batches have been affected. Despite all oddities, the so-called service-rate of the D800 is unremarkable and only "sligthly increased" (compared to other camera models).

• I take it that Nikon will not publish an official statement about this issue. And I take it too that meanwhile this has been internally decided in Japan. So, don't ask for it ... ;)

• Independently of corporate information policy, Nikon wants to help all customers with the problem without asking much questions. This includes returned goods from dealers and service calls after expiration of the warranty period. (Note however, that Nikon Germany cannot speak for the rest of the world.)
 
You magically missed the biggest point.

*There is some dispute about the eventual success of the service measures from Nikon so far. Not only are there differences between countries and early attempts have faced difficulties and a lack of a clear procedure. But there is additional uncertainty about what to reasonably expect, esp. with the large sensor resolution of the D800. Therefore, the eventual success of the service measures from Nikon must be gauged relative to what is feasible technically. Every AF module from every vendor has finite AF field deviations. Lumolabs determined (depending on the lens too) deviations of up to 40µm between AF fields (cf. www.falklumo.com/lumolabs/articles/D800Focus/SensorArray.html) as being usual in the market and acceptable for good image quality where 20µm would be very good. Such are accuracy values as found in other cameras (e.g., D3). According to Nikon, we shall expect the same (or better) for freshly produced batches of D800 from Nikon, or for D800 now being calibrated in service. LumoLabs intends to verify this claim. Until then, we cannot really know if isolated continued reports about inacceptable AF accuracy after service are due to a failure during calibration or an unreasonable expectation. It is this blog which actually proposed a method to distinguidh between the two. Nikon is supporting our contribution to bring the discussion back to facts.
 
What? That the new batch of D800 may be more accurate than the faulty older batches (We know this), and that a repaired item may be returned better once repaired (We also know this) or that Nikon may not repair each camera to the satisfaction of the owner first time round (We also know this).
 
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Not just to the satisfaction on the customer.. They may not even fix the issue after a service and don't have a set procedure to fix them.This is something I had heard before posted from someone who had an in-depth chat with a nikon rep/tech.

If it is such a small no. of cameras as nikon claim that are affected, would it not be better for there name to just straight out replace any that were sent for repair within say the first 6 months of purchase that showed these AF issues.Repair them and sell them as refurbished with the understanding that they have originally had the issue.

I know there are a lot of happy nikon users but there seems to be a growing no. of unsatisfied users, due to these issues and any servicing issues.
They can't afford to anger and loose any more customers, as even with there recent models that sold well they still didn't make as much money as they expected and had to lower there forecasts.

Even if my camera and lens gets sorted this has left a bitter taste in my month and i will not be buying any new models from them until they have been well used and any issues ironed out.
 
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