While I might have been quiet about the D800 last week, the number of people contacting me about their problems with that camera hasn't really abated. Besides the left sensor AF problem, I've gotten five nine different reports of the 10-pin connector simply disappearing into the body the first time someone tried to connect to it. Add to that many "it came back with different focus issues" problems, and my In Box was just as full last week as the previous weeks. [As usual, many don't quite "get it." I've seen multiple "a few reports = big problem?" kinds of posts. The issue here is a delta (change) in quality control. The number of such reports I've gotten on all previous Nikon DSLRs? One. I get enough volume of email from Nikon DSLR users that changes tend to be fairly easy to detect. Broken 10-pin connectors out of the box is something new.]
More so than any previous Nikon DSLR, the D800 has become a constant "support issue" for me. There appear to be four aspects to this:
- People buying too much camera. I'm a little surprised at how many folk are buying this camera to use mostly like a compact camera. Something about the 36mp bragging rights, I guess. I've run into a number of these folk in the field with the 28-300mm lens hanging off the front, too. US$4000 seems like a lot of money to spend for such uses, but maybe this is the way we'll work our way out of the economic malaise: conspicuous over consumption. The solution: there are better cameras for casual photography. Indeed, there are tons of nice cameras now for casual photography.
- Upgraders trying to cope. One thing I've taken to when I get asked some questions about how the D800 does something or whether to use a certain feature is to ask the asker what camera they used prior to the D800. A surprising number of those are longer leaps than I'd expect (e.g. D70 to D800). As much as Nikon has done many things consistently over their long SLR/DSLR history, there's still an enormous amount that changed from the D70 to the D800. Picture Controls versus Modes, for instance. Completely new autofocus system with new nomenclature and different traits (focus can no longer "trap" for example). The list is actually quite long, especially when you consider the additions. The solution: to keep up with technology of any sort, you're in constant learning mode. The bigger the leap you make, the more you need to make an effort to catch up on that learning.
- The D800 as dominatrix. This is the category that both Nikon and I were worried about from introduction day. At pixel level we're looking at some pretty tiny levels of detail now. Small technique issues get revealed fairly clearly now. There's a simple way to tell if that's your issue: downsize your D800 images to 12mp and compare them to your D700 (or D300 or whatever other 12mp camera you were using; if you were using something <12mp, downsize to that). The solution: If you see the same thing from a downsized D800 image that you do in your D700 image, then pixel level problems on the D800 would tend to indicate capture discipline issues you need to fix. The increased sampling is letting you see what was always there, just not visible. Start with Nikon's D800 Technical Guide, read my capture discipline articles (here's one, here's another, and note the dates on these: back in the 12mp era; triple that advice!), take a workshop from a pro, pay more attention to what you're doing while photographing, get a better support system and learn how to use it, make sure you're using the right lenses, make sure you understand diffraction.
- Quality control. Or rather, the apparent lack of it, which is shocking for a Sendai-produced product. This is where most of the Internet chatter has been for the last couple of months. Now it's being added to by another factor: I'm getting lots of reports of folks where it took two visits to Nikon repair to get their autofocus system into a well managed state (little side to side variation at a position where they can AF Fine Tune all their lenses). The solution: will have to come from Nikon.
As a long-time Nikon user (45+ years) #4 is disappointing. I can only hope this is a short-lived anomaly and not a new normal we have to live with. I also don't deal with many folk in #1 on this Web site, either: I write too many words for them; they want convenience and a short answer (shortest answer I could give them: RX-100). If they're happy that the D800 delivers what they need, then I'm fine. But these folk pixel peep, too (often just showing off how much detail is in their photo of Johnny in front of Half Dome), so I hope this isn't a new normal, too.
The rest of us are all in #2 or #3. The good news is that it's just another of those time = reward scenarios. The more energy you put into mastering the nuances of the D800, the more you'll be rewarded. Because that's still the bottom line here: despite all the "doesn't focus right" and other QC complaints, the D800 is capable of creating stunning images. Personally, I'm going to work more on dominating my D800 than having it dominate me. When I use it, I'm tightening my camera-handling habits a bit, and it shows.