D800E - poor quality control and then poor NPS service

[james_symington1]

<p>I find myself annoyed with Nikon (again).<br /> My D800E had two problems out of the box. When manual focusing through the viewfinder it became clear that there was some alignment problem with the mirror/focusing screen such that whatever you focused on by eye always came out a bit off. I thought it was my eyes and went through a bit of middle-aged eyesight paranoia but a careful test revealed it was it and not me. However, I know that's an easy fix.<br /> Worse though was the quick realisation that all my lenses (mostly Zeiss ZFs with infinity hard stops) focus past infinity. Even my 50mm f1.4G, when autofocusing, stops short of infinity when focusing at an object 600 metres away (and produces a perfectly focused picture).<br /> This can only be a lens mount to sensor distance issue to my mind. On my D700 my lenses focused at infinity perfectly when on the hard stop and in fact a lot of my landscapes are nocturnal and rely on that being well calibrated. So I found myself annoyed with Nikon.<br /> To compound my annoyance I took the camera into NPS to get this sorted and when I got the camera back yesterday the infinity focus issue is still there in all its unadulterated glory.<br>

There have been several reports about poor D800/E QC problems - Bythom was mentioned in an earlier thread - and I irritatingly find myself the victim of it. That servicing the camera produced no change and I have to take it back again is terribly poor.<br>

<br /> Caveat emptor.</p>

[john_reynolds10]

<p>It's a good practice to hold off purchasing a new product to see what bugs, if any, emerge.</p>

[Ian Rance]

<p>James, I am sorry about this. It is sad, but the actual build quality of almost all goods has dropped in the past few years.<br>

I have also lost faith in service departments. I have photographic items come back marked, marred, jammed, dirty, lenses oozing oil and failing soon after service. Why has service dropped to such a low standard? I feel I could do better myself sometimes.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>I have read a lot of complaints about the left-AF-point issue on D800 and D4 bodies, especially on DPReview forums.</p>

<p>The D800 test sample I received in late March is obviously among the earliest off the production line. The D800E that I had to wait two months for is a slightly later sample. I just mounted my 105mm/f2.8 AF that has a hard infinity stop on both cameras, and that is correct on both. The same for the 35mm/f1.4 AI-S. I also checked extensively on the left-AF-point issue on the D800E since that is my own camera. So far everything checks out ok on both cameras.</p>

<p>James, I am afraid that you need to bring it back to NPS service again. Clearly explain in writing what the problem is. I am sure your D800E merely needs some fine adjustment.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p> but the actual build quality of almost all goods has dropped in the past few years.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Ian, that was exactly what my grandmother used to say when I was a child back in the 1960's. In her mind, products from her youth like the 1930's and 1940's were much better in quality.</p>

<p>I only have experience with a very small sample of two, but personally, I have yet to find any problems with the D800 and D800E I am using.</p>

[Jerry_]

<p>This has to be a failure of Nikon not printing clearly on the box "The Nikon D800E may not, repeat may not, work perfectly with a non-Nikkor brand lens."</p>

<p>Does the D800E instruction book provide info on which Zeiss lens will work on the camera?</p>

<p> </p>

[james_symington1]

<p>It's the first time I have had a problem with a brand new body although I have had issues with a couple of lenses in the past. I can kind of forgive Nikon given the monstrous problems they have had over the past 18 months. I can't really forgive the service department of Nikon UK anywhere so easily.</p>

[james_symington1]

<p>Jerry - I said "mostly" Zeiss ZFs not "only". It is out of calibration with a Nikkor lens too as it focuses at infinity (in my case a pylon 600 metres away) short of the infinity mark on the scale of my 50mm f1.4G. I also left that lens with Nikon so they could see for themselves but they clearly didn't bother.<br /> Infinity is achieved short of the infinity mark on all the lenses I own - Nikkors, Zeisses and Voigtlanders.<br /> Presumably Nikon make their cameras compatible with manual focus lenses - including their own - so that you can actually use manual focus lenses on them?</p>

[waltflanagan]

<p>Norm Abram of This Old House often says "They don't make them like they used to... and thank goodness for that.</p>

<p>I think people compare the best products (and buildings) from years ago and compare it to ordinary products of today. We should really compare the ordinary build quality products from 50 years ago but they have fallen apart and have been forgotten. </p>

<p>But it is disappointing to read of so many D800 quality problems. Thom Hogan has recently gone in to detail on it as well.</p>

 

[richard__]

<p>Well this makes sense in a way.</p>

<p>They are in a rush to fill all the orders, so Nikon may not have time to test everything as thoroughly before pushing products out the door.</p>

<p>Then NPS service is a rush service too, where the camera is quickly serviced before others.</p>

<p>One can only guess that this camera is behaving in 'spec' and that is why it was returned this way. That is the most troubling aspect of this case.</p>

<p>I recently sent a miss behaving light meter to Manfrotto, after waiting almost a month they billed me for work which was never done, and then returned it to me unserviced. Maybe Nikon forgot that part of the job, being more concerned about returning it to you after billing for their work. Which they never had time to do because it was a NPS rush job.</p>

<p>If the camera is still non-performing correctly while in warranty, I would give it back to Nikon and ask for a refund.</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>The body has two major parts, the front body and the rear body. When they are assembled and the lens bayonet is in place one has to check the distance from the surface of bayonet mount to several points on the sensor PCB. The tolerance is given both as a distance and as parallelism.</p>

<p>If the distance is off you don't get perfect focus at infinity with a manual focus lens that has a hard infinity stop. And the distance markings on the lens will not be correct.</p>

<p>If the parallelism is off (sensor not parallel to lens mount) you will get one side of the image softer than the other. This will only show up using large apertures and wide angle lenses because that is when the depth of focus is shallow and the parallelism critical. (Depth of focus is like depth of field but related to the sensor and not the subject).</p>

<p>Nikon can get away with shoddy service because sloppy assembly and calibration will only be noticed by those with manual focus lenses focusing at infinity. AF lenses will look fine if the AF is calibrated and distance markings on AF lenses are well, almost non existent anyway.</p>

<p>And that the sensor might not be parallel to the mount will only be noticed by those looking for sharpness over the entire frame with wide angles like 24/1.4 shot at large apertures. Not the usual combination of shooting parameters.</p>

<p>So Nikon service probably just check that your AF is calibrated and then return your body. That's a lot less work and will likely make a lot of people satisfied. And Nikon will use their second, third or fourth attempt to do the real job.</p>

<p> </p>

[pete_s.]

<p>These are some of the mechanical adjustments made on dslrs at a full disassembly/assembly that affects image quality one way or the another:<br>

1) Height adjustment of aperture lever<br>

2) Angle adjustment of main mirror and sub-mirror <br>

3) Inspection and adjustment of body back (sensor to lens mount)<br>

4) Inspection and adjustment of AE CCD alignment (AE=auto exposure)<br>

5) Infinity alignment and adjustment (focus screen)</p>

<p>I would specifically ask for no 3 and then no 2, no 5 and then AF calibration as those will likely be out of tolerance when several lenses doesn't focus at infinity anymore.</p>

<p>It just a lot of work for Nikon because they have to disassamble a lot to do no 3.</p>

 

[Mike D]

<p>Regarding Nikon Service (El Segundo), I dropped my D800 on an asphalt driveway at about 3 feet height and when it landed on the top of the camera, the top of the camera blew off into pieces. (I know a professional who did the same thing so I'm not too embarrassed.) I was stunned and prepared to file a free replacement claim on my AmX card because I was within the 90 day breakage/theft guarantee or pay Nikon up to $1,000 to repair it. I drove over to Nikon El Segundo and the nice receptionist lady (who has been there for years), advised me that the highest repair code for D800s was only $181. I couldn't believe it and handed over the D800 for repair fully anticipating getting a subsequent note that the camera was not repairable. After several weeks (due to lack of parts) and a couple calls to Nikon Service to get the "inside story" on my repair, I got the D800 back by mail in perfect condition and for only $181. This is fantastic but not unusual since I have had similar positive experiences with other repairs on other bodies and lenses over the years. On numerous occasions, Nikon El Segundo has gotten the job done for me beyond my expectation as long as you provide enough written explanation and sample images. (I am not a shill for Nikon as I also use Sony Alpha system equipment and lots of Sigma lenses.)</p>

[User_502260]

<p>I have had infinity focus problems with other equipment. One of my Nikon F2 bodies is out of adjustment and lenses which focus to infinity on other Nikon bodies will not do so with this one. I brought it to a local repair place and was told that there is no mirror angle adjustment on the F2. Another repair person told me something else. I have another F2 with no infinity focus problem so the problem body can wait to be looked at.<br>

Several years ago I bought a 24mm f/2 (2XXX...) Vivitar lens in Konica AR mount. The first place it went to told me the aperture spring was bad. I sent it to a second place. It turned out that the lens has floating elements and it had to be completely disassembled to clean everything out. The aperture mechanism now worked but infinity focus looked off. I sent back the lens with three different Konica bodies. I was told that each body was off at infinity by some very small amount based on test equipment. I explained all of this to a local repair place. I was asked which body I wanted to use the lens with. The lens was then set to achieve perfect infinity focus (based on looking through the finder) and has worked well even if I didn't use it that much. The last time I looked at the lens it had a very small amount of oil on the blades. As a fan of the original Star Trek series, all I can say it "Help me Spock!" The 24/2.8 compact Konica Hexanon (made by Tokina) is very sharp and I have two of them so I will only tackle the 24/2 Vivitar again when I have to. The repair place I see most often will bias its lens service toward allowing focusing a little past infinity rather than the other way around.<br>

What's the best fit I have for a lens at infinity? A 35/2 Canon FD SSC (concave front element) on a Canon F-1. </p>

[ilkka_nissila]

The distance scale of Nikkors is approximate at best and cannot be trusted for setting focus. Temperature variations cause mechanical

changes in the lens that shift the distance so there is nothing that can be done with it. Regarding Zeiss lenses, I am pretty sure they also

deliberately allow the focusing slightly past infinity because it's a lot worse if the lens doesn't focus at infinity at all. And they have to build

a tolerance for this. The D800's high pixel count merely makes it easier to see the difference between true infinity focus and the hard

stop. Your expectations are completely unrealistic - no high resolution camera system is going to have a real hard stop at infinity.

 

Regarding manual focusing using the viewfinder, the position of the focusing screen can be adjusted using a screw that is on the right

side of the mirror box looking at the camera from the lens side with viewfinder pointed up. You can do this adjustment yourself using a

ruler pattern and a repeated manual focus + test exposure procedure (five or more shots). I did this for the D700 and it works fine now.

Do use a tripod for this test.

 

For infinity focus, I would recommend focusing using live view. If it is too dark for this to work, position and focus the camera on tripod

during daylight. It is possible even to focus on stars using live view with fast lenses.

[kieran1]

<p>James. I recently bought a D800E and have been doing daytime timelapse at f22 with a 110 filter. I have radical banding in the skies on both my Nikor24mm and my Nikon 14-24 zoom. Its like there's a nuclear cloud on the horizon and the white balance was set at cloudy, Adobe, and everything manual. It was totally cloudy and the sun was barely up in the east. Nowhere near where the horizon was. Anyone else having trouble with radical sky banding right off the RAW file? I'm about to go back to 8x10. Not happy at all with this.</p>

[david_ralph1]

<p>I am still lusting after a D800E myself. I cannot speak to the banding issue. But the lens choice, and the F stop used remind of a recent issue with the 12-24mm. Lloyd Chambers recently published his findings that the 14-24mm has a serious problem with focus shift when the lens is stopped down much at all; e.g., from wide open at 2.8 down just two stops. At 5.6, zoomed to14mm, the lens then focues behind the central focus target obtained during focusing at 22.8; thus, a blurry center is obtained. Apparently the 14-24 mm is optimized for wide open sharpness. You are at F22, well beyond the diffraction point for the D800 sensor, and at an aperture which may yield blur in particular with this lens. He suggests focusing using live view, if stopped down.</p>

<p>There have been a few other pros who have commented about the 14-24mm not doing well on the D800. Too bad, I just got the lens last year, for use on my D700, and I really like it. Dismaying to learn that its usefulness on the D800 may require being very, very careful about how things are focused.</p>

[andre_noble5]

<p>The lady at Nikon El Segundo is "Sandy". They finally did a good job of servicing my Nikon AFS I 300 f2.8 lens. Kudos!</p>

[james_symington1]

<p>I have attached two shots of the focusing scale of two of my lenses when the lens is live view focused at infinity (one is the ZF 25mm f2 and the other the 50m f1.4G). All my other lenses fare exactly the same.<br /> As you can see that is not a tiny fraction out but is actually quite a lot. Ilkka, the ZF lenses are made with a hard infinity stop that are set exactly on infinity - they do not go beyond. This is also the first SLR of any kind I have owned that has allowed this to happen. That the D800E is going to be a bit more touchy to focus I am happy and prepared to accept but I think this is well outside what heat expansion will do - short of dropping the lens into the Cracks of Doom :-)</p><div></div>

[james_symington1]

<p>Here's the 25mm f2 ZF2</p><div></div>

[ilkka_nissila]

Ok James, having the infinity of the Zeiss lens that far off seems excessive and the Nikkor shows a similar offset. Have it another go at service, send those

pics in too.

[ShunCheung]

<p>If it is doable, I would give them a manual-focus lens also to make sure that this D800E focuses with the lens at infinity. Again, I checked my D800E with the 35mm/f1.4 AI-S and 105mm/f2.8 AF, both have a focusing ring that has a hard stop at infinity. Mine is perfect; there is absolutely no reason why yours is not.</p>

<p>I am sure Nikon is not dumb. Those who buy D800E bodies are going to be extremely picky photographers. The difference between a D800 and D800E is small; that is a well known fact as reported by a number of reviews such as DPReview and Rob Galbraith. My experience with both the D800 and D800E confirms it also. We are getting the D800E to gain that tiny bit of advantage and will not tolerage any little flaw in the camera.</p>

[oivind_toien]

<p>I have the same problem with incorrect register distance on my D5100 and need to focus closer than the infinity hard stop on my manual focus lenses. It is about the same travel as James show on his Zeiss lens and amounts to 0.1mm travel out of the barrel across the manual focus lenses when I tested in live view on a subject at a 1 mile distance. (None of these have ED glass which can be more susceptible to thermal effects). Nikon support's response was not very encouraging, the support person started to write about AF and that tolerances had to be expected, while AF is not involved here at all (and btw AF is pretty accurate on this body).</p>

<p>Bjørn Rørslett's response on the Nikongear forum to my post was that the tolerances for the Nikon mount in the film SLR days was 0.05mm, and this traveled over to the DSLR area.</p>

<p>Not sure what to do as I could easliy see that other things could be messed up if things has to be completely disassembled and AF and focusing screen readjusted, and in these days with D800 focus problems Nikon repair might be very busy...</p>

[pete_s.]

Oivind, the numbers you quoted about the tolerances has probably been mixed up. Nikon repair manuals for several film bodies states +/- 0.02 mm for the register distance. For older dslrs like the D70 it's +/- 0.015mm. For the D800 I don't know but probably less than the D70.

 

 

After the register distance is corrected, recalibration of the AF and focus screen is required.

 

 

To calibrate the focusing screen for infinity the tolerance is +/- 0.05mm. Maybe that is where the number you got came from.

[oivind_toien]

<p>Thanks Pete for filling in. That would mean that what I am seeing is >5 times the tolerance for the D70, which should be a comparable body. Direct quote from Bjørn is: "The production tolerance of the mount (and hence, the register distance) is +- 0.05 mm. That originated in the film era and was carried over into the digital models for the better or worse." ( For those who have access, here is the link to the thread: <a href="http://nikongear.com/live/index.php?/topic/41368-tolerances-for-effective-register-distance-of-nikon-dslrs/">http://nikongear.com/live/index.php?/topic/41368-tolerances-for-effective-register-distance-of-nikon-dslrs/</a> ).<br />Anyone with access to the D5100 and D800 repair manuals who could look up the numbers for those bodies?</p>