Putting D600 initial release issues in perspective

That we've been a bit complacent when it comes to finding whatever excuse to Nikon's recurrent QC issues.

Look, like many of us here I have been a loyal Nikon customer for many years. We really like the brand and are enthusiast about their engineering. Personally I've had a very few non-Nikon cameras which were all small cameras (a Kodak Instamatic (!), the original Olympus PEN, an Olympus digital P&S) but all my SLRs and dSLRs have been Nikon. And I've never had any regret about this choice.

My first dSLR was the D70. I remember trying to buy it right after it started shipping. Little digression here: I tried to order from B&H. But it was such a success that it was back ordered for a long time. The DX forum was loaded with complains about Nikon always being behind in production for new models and B&H not delivering. Ultimately I gave up on B&H because it was clear that the camera would not ship in time for a planned vacations and got it from a small store. Sound familiar ? Another side note: the price was $1,000 (minus one dollar of course ) for the body, which using 3% yearly inflation comes to a little more than 1,250 of today's dollars, not that much less than you pay nowadays a D600, just to put into perspective the value we get for a D600 today.

The D70 forum was filled with user feedback and a regular complain was that the D70 back focuses. So the first thing I did when the camera came was to print an AF target and check the camera AF (it didn't have the issue). Fast forward 8 or so years later and I order a D800e from B&H - lots of back orders - B&H clearly won't deliver in time for my summer vacations - lots of complains on the FX forum - got it from a small store in time for vacations .And the first thing I did when I got the camera was to print an AF target and check the leftmost AF sensor (no problem), because, again, user feedback was that a non-trivial number of cameras had miscalibrated leftmost sensor.

I apologize for boring you with my little personal story, but here is the key point (finally ! ). All of these years we have seen QC issues with Nikon dSLRs and in particular AF sensors and oil or dust on sensors. All of these years we've been quick to excuse Nikon (must be user error, learn to clean the sensor, complex camera, etc). The result ? Nikon comes up with two cameras with the worse ever frequency of problems, AF for D800 and dust or oil for D600. So have we learned here ? Users don't want cameras with problematic AF or unusual frequency of dust on their sensors. Nikon should have known that years ago if it ever paid attention to what its customers want. But maybe it has paid attention and read our excuses. Reading them I can see a manufacturer coming to the wrong conclusion: we'll work around the issues and they're no big deal. But the truth is: regardless of how good the camera is we don't want to spend the kind of money we spend on D600 and D800 and have to deal with this aggravation. These are trivial issues to identify before mass production and they should have been detected, diagnosed, and fixed before mass producing the cameras. In the end we've done a disservice to both Nikon and us but not saying so much earlier.

So no more excuse from me. Nikon, continue the great engineering but fix once and for all these trivial issues. And communicate with your customers.

Regardless of my little rant here (apologies, again), I intend to continue to be a loyal customer, even with all these QC problems. But, hush! Don't tell Nikon

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Thierry - posted as regular forum member