I've now had the time to go through the August and much of the September data I've received from D800 users and other sources. A couple of things seem clear:
- Newly received cameras reported as having a focus problem are going down. But they still aren't zero.
- The latest fix seems like a fix. Almost all "early fix" cameras came back fixed, but offset to something like +10 AF Fine Tune. It appears that the latest deployment of the procedure actually fixes cameras to 0 AF Fine Tune. People who had a difficult time calibrating lenses after "the fix" who sent the camera back, now report that they've got a system that can be AF Fine Tuned properly.
I've also now heard a report that Nikon is supplying new 50mm lenses to the focus test stations at the subsidiaries. While the lens isn't directly used in the calibration process, it is used to assess focus performance before and after calibration.
In short, while Nikon has said virtually zip to customers, behind the scenes it seems that they've been scrambling to iron out every lose end. I have to compare Nikon's response to this problem to Apple's iOS Map problem: Tim Cook did the right thing and issued a public statement and apology and an assurance Apple would do what it takes to make Maps better quickly. Nikon has said nothing to customers, even customers who've had to send their cameras back multiple times to get them working as they should.
At the risk of sounding like a broken tape that plays over and over again: this is customer antagonistic. All you do is piss off your loyal customers by taking the approach Nikon has taken. Thing is, if camera sales have indeed peaked and will show no real growth through 2018 as many analysts, including myself, predict, how do you retain your current customers and get new ones from your competitors when you're taking a customer antagonistic approach to support and service? Having people running around saying "yeah my D800's really great, but it took four months for Nikon to make it focus right and they never did admit that there was anything wrong, let alone pick up the initial shipping back to them" is not going to get you a lot of new customers.