D300 Reliability?

Is it my imagination or are there inordinate number of D300 issues being surfaced here? I've been following this

forum for quite some time and I can't recall a single camera model generating so much negative traffic.

Curtis -

 

I have 2 D300's (one since Dec of last year) and have had no issues with either.

 

I think some of it may be just due to the number of them out there, some do to the lack of knowledge / usage of the camera and some may be due to the popularity of this site.

 

I know when I bought my D200 - I went over to Nikonians and looked around and wished I could take it back immediately - I couldn't believe all of the bad things that were said about that camera on a Nikon Forum no less!

 

Dave

I am afraid that it is merely your imagination. Most of the so called "problems" are due to user errors.

The main problem with the D300 is that a small number of them had the false battery low issue, e.g.:

http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00OT2O

 

It affects a small number of D300's, whose owners of course complained loudly. The real problem was that it took

Nikon months to come up with a fix in firmware that angered those who were affected, but it is not really an issue any more.

 

Otherwise, the D200's banding issue was more wide spread (as far as I can tell) and of course the D70's BGLOD was quite bad such that Nikon USA had to set up a special address to accept units for repair out of warranty.

 

7, 8 years ago there were a lot of F100 failure reports, not because there was anything particularly wrong with the

F100 in terms of percentages; it was just that the F100 was Nikon's best-selling film SLR at that time so that there

were more problem reports because there were a lot of F100 bodies out there.

Every new major model introduction has been accompanied by many anecdotal observations of perceived problems and a relative handful of actual documented problems. Notably the F100, D70, D2H, D200, D3, D300 all appear "defective" if you go by raw numbers of internet-wide posts associated with complaints, which are very misleading. Ditto several models from Canon, a few Leicas.

 

Other makers (and specific models within each brand) enjoy the illusion of appearing to have fewer problems because there are fewer owners, therefore fewer disgruntled folks to post endless complaints, followed by disproportionate quoting of unattributed, unverifiable complaints.

Curtis

 

people complain when things do not work in the way that they want, wish or hope from most of the posts on this forum I think a lot of these stem from the manual which alought it has all the info it does not seem to be written in a manner that is easy to understand.Also by human nature we only complain.

<a href="http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00RPOu?unified_p=1" ><b>This thread</b></a> is a perfect example of how <i>perceptions</i> of problems are perpetuated throughout the internet. Despite the complete lack of attribution or credible references, threads like that become part of interweb lore (read: soggy porridge) because those types of thread titles and unsupported assertions are very prominent on search engines.

Not that I'm in the market for a D300. It's a little rich for my level of expertise. But I do like Nikon and would hope that the D300 is a solid camera. Thanks for the replies.

It is funny but I agree with Curtis also I think David and Shun are right. What i mean is at first every one was so high with

this camera and it became so popular. I think it is the top seller Nikon DSLR. Because there are so many there are more

people with problems. As Shun said, most of the time is human error. Now days there are newer models and some how

people star complaining more often about the older cameras. Lately I don't see new posts complementing the D300 and

mostly the posts are about people having problems. Back last, year someone said in a thread that he couldn't wait to see

how people would start complaining about it after a few months.

 

Personally I think it is a great camera!

IMHO the reason we are hearing about all these issues is because they have sold so many D300's. I love mine.

There's no way to test reliability on a camera that has just come out.

The D300 first went onto the market the day before Thanksgiving, 2007 (late November), so it has been around for

almost a year.

 

Just to relay a recent experience. Last week I was traveling in Mexico with a bunch of photographers.

One guy is a physician (i.e. not someone "dumb") and a somewhat experienced photographer. He kept having "problems" with his SB-800

flash. He first accidentally engaged the lock feature (pressing on the Set and On/Off switch simultaneously) and

suddently his flash was "malfunctioning" because none of the buttons worked (because the whole flash was locked).

It took me a while to figure out how to unlock it since I hadn't used that feature for quite a while. And then his flash

zoom was "stuck" at 14mm; it turned out that he had the external diffuser on.

 

Admittedly some Nikon equipment are quite complex and the manuals are not that well written. But most of the time

it is merely user error. That physician was about to send his flash back to Nikon for repair, but fortunately we figured

it all out that day.

Pilot error is king of the realm of electronics.

 

Problem: My printer won't print - Solution: Turn printer on.

 

Problem: The computer won't show the equipment for this room in the floor plan. - Solution: Go back and restore the X-Refs you deleted because you thought they made the drawing look too busy.

 

And I ain't making that up.

 

The D300 is a fairly complicated piece of equipment. And the last place most users of anything want to look for the cause of a problem is in themselves.

I don't want to admit it, but I do one problem with my D300 (gray market).

 

The focus confirmation Beeper stopped working after a few weeks. I've tried a number of things such as upgrading

the software, different lens and so on.

 

In the Menu, if I switch between Beeper On/Off, Low/High, the sound can be heard. But whether I use the

AF-Confirm only or the focus-on-shutter-halfway, there is no sound.

 

Maybe I need to do a double-button reset, but I don't want to loose all my My Menu features.

 

Apart from that, I've had no other issues.

 

Great camera!

Andy, don't hesitate to use a double button reset.

 

As I understood you can save all settings on a flash, then simply load them again. "My menu" items should be

saved as well (not checked though..)

 

NB/

Andy, it sounds like your M-S-C lever below the lens-release button has been switched to C, continuous focus, where there is no sound on autofocus. If you put it into the middle position, the beep will return :-).

I was at a Halloween party last month and a woman was shooting with her 6 month old D300 and SB-600. She complained about numerous issues with her camera and flash. All the problems were in her settings - she had no clue how to set or use her camera (she had not opened the instruction book). After 2 minutes of very basic adjustments to her settings, she happily used the camera for the rest of the evening and was thrilled with the results. She told me she had never opened the owner's manual.

 

While not every camera is made or holds up perfect, I agree with Shun and others, most operation problems are user and not equipment related. There is no reason for someone with a camera that is working perfectly to complain about it!

Curtis,

 

I guess I must be blind cause I have no idea what you're speaking of. As far as the D300. I got mine the day it was released last year. That's the day before Thanksgiving if I'm not wrong. I have well over 20,000 actuations on mine & I have yet to have any issues with mine. For all the screaming & complaining I've heard out of Jim Fenton on DPR ,NikonCafe & many other sites. His comments that it's the first ones & that they've fixed it in later releases - - I have yet to have a single problem with my D300.

 

Lets be realistic now shall we - - fact is, most of the time people don't go in a forum like this to tell everyone how they love their camera. They post if they have a problem. Now, add to this I frequent many boards - - on DPR the main complaints have come from people who have no idea how to use the camera. They think it behaves like a P&S.

 

So, before you make this kind of comment. At least base it on fact, not fiction. I seriously doubt the D300 has generated so much negative traffic as you suggest.

 

Lil

I know that I'm in the minority here but, my D300 got stuck on aperture priority mode after about 6 months. I

performed the "two button" reset which got it stuck on programmed auto. I worked with Nikon Support on the phone

over a number of days trying various things to no avail.

 

Finally I brought it in to Melville for service, they had it several weeks. When I called to check on it, I was told that it

was sent out to a vendor for repair. Have you heard of that before?

 

It turns out that the camera had already been repaired but it got hung up in some sort of clerical snafu and hadn't

been returned from the vendor. At least this is what I was told.

 

I not complaining, just relating my experience.

I got my D300 in January. I've upgraded the firmware whenere a new version came out, even though I had no problems. I just returned from hauling the camera around China for two weeks without one single proble,. More than 8,000 cl;icks now. My only complaint is it's easy to bumb the AF setting to continuous or off which occassionally fuzzies up a picture for me.

I was having a lot of trouble with my D300. Turns out that the firmware was still at 1.03, and upgrading the firmware seems to

have helped a lot.