D800 asymmetric focus issue hits Switzerland at the end of September 2012
Ignorance is a bliss, but in this case I should have been blind, too. This picture panel (click to enlarge) shows you that my brand new Nikon D800 (sn 60xxxxxx) has the so called left focus point problem. Just google for D800 asymmetric focus issue and you will find hundreds of sad D800 owners.
From the test you can see the asymmetric nature of the issue: correcting with the AF fine tuning cannot solve the problem, as when the left AF looks slightly better (tuning AF = -12), the center point gets into troubles. With plus or more negative values (down to -20 !) it gets strongly blurred.
I contacted via mail the Swiss Nikon Service in Egg (close to Zurich), I will keep you updated. At least after this photo test I had something to drink to forget ;(
The test was run with:
– Nikon D800 (surprise!)
– 50 mm f/1.4G Nikkor full open
– 500 W halogen lamp
– 3 objects at a distance of 2.5m corresponding to left, center, right AF points
– pictures were shot in M-up and camera was on tripod to avoid vibrations
– live views were shot as lens tests
– before each shot, focus was changed manually to let the AF find the subject
– these pictures are representative of 5 replicates
– the panel is assembled with 100% cropped pictures
oh nooooo!!!!!
The Nikon Service in Egg wrote me back I can bring it in and wait 10 days to 2 weeks for the calibration (I suspect I am not the only one, just my idea). I am thinking positive at the moment.
Did you get any results from Egg? I talked to them in July and they said, they didn’t have a working solution for the problem in Switzerland yet.
They told they could repair it as in October they got from Nikon new protocols to follow, but the results were far from being satisfying as you can read in this other post of mine. So, let’s do that the first who gets the D800 fully repaired alters the others :-/ ?
Nikon service centers are starting to understand the problem. I live close to the Melville, NY repair center, and took my D800E in to get fixed because mine had the Left Focus Issue.
It came back 9 days later, and its “PIN Sharp” all across. Literally perfect!
Check my blog about it for details.
http://www.faymusmedia.com/blog
I am glad. Nevertheless, as already last November several forums announced “Nikon services know now what to do do” .. I will wait some months more before going for a second repair. Anyway, Nikon kindly extended the warranty to 3 years.