Let me skip immediately to the moral of this piece: test your Nikon gear when you first receive it, thoroughly, and if there's a problem return it for exchange or refund because Nikon (UK at least) don't seem to be very good at repairs.

A brief recap: I have a Nikon D800E with the infamous Left Side Focus Issue. It is still capable of astonishing results but with shorter focal lengths it is strongly advisable to avoid using the left-most focus point. I haven't tried to get it fixed because there is much anecdotal evidence that Nikon are still trying to bottom out the problem and because the D800 I had went back twice, without success, for the same problem, to Nikon UK at Richmond.

Now to be fair, Nikon repair was swift and courteous and they paid for P&P and when they failed to effect a repair, they at least agreed a refund.

Readers of this blog may recall my recent series of field reviews of the 24-120 F4 VRII zoom. I tested this extensively on both D800 and E bodies and find it to be a very useful and capable lens. BUT my copy had a blurry right-hand side at all but the 24 and 28mm focal lengths, and at 50MM and longer this was strong enough to compromise even moderate sized prints.

Richmond received it for repair on the 1st of August having promised to get it back to me before my vacation at the end of August. The receipt email stated that it would be completed by 15th August.

By 20th August, still sans lens, I called to chase it and on 23rd August I received it back. 

And I really, really wonder what goes on in that workshop.

Follows, crops at 85mm f5.6 from far left

before:

_DSC3559 and after:

_DSC4132

I wasn't complaining about the left side: it's not great but this is a zoom. It seems unchanged to possibly very slightly better after the repair.

The right hand side before:

_DSC3559-2 and after:

_DSC4132-2

Again, possibly a tiny touch better but not in any way acceptable in a lens of this price - especially given that it is recommended by Nikon for use on the D800.

The repair docket says: "Check focus to Nikon Standard. Check lens resolution to Nikon standard. Check, test and clean equipment."

I can only assume that

• Nikon's 'standard' is piss poor or
• Richmond are not up to the job of repairing to meet it or
• My eyesight is a lot worse than my optician thinks or
• I have egregiously unreasonable expectations

Based on the evidence above, what do you think?

I would add this: a lot of photographers have switched to the D800 from either Medium Format or from Canon. Me for example - I have switched from both. That's a lot of new customers to impress. When you switch systems, you have to acquire a lot of new stuff at once, and test it properly. My verdict of this experience so far is, it sucks - and then it blows meaty chunks. Out of two bodies, two have been faulty out of the box and out of six lenses, three have needed repair or return though to be fair the dealer felt that one of those was OK though to me it clearly wasn't.

I am posting this not merely to vent but to warn. I am now going to take a Panny GH2 and a Sony RX100 on vacation and not bother with the Nikon gear. A left focus point that doesn't work, combined with a fuzzy right hand side on the general purpose zoom I was planning to carry, make this expensive system less viable than far more modest equipment from other manufacturers.

For those in doubt, look at these two files. One is a D800E file with 24-120, after repair, at 100mm F5.6  ISO125 and I have downsized it to the same size as a file taken on a Sony RX100, also processed from RAW. The Sony file is also F5.6 and ISO125 and at 100mm equivalent focal length from the rather good 28-100mm equivalent lens. That lens might have a shorter zoom range but it also has a much faster maximum aperture of F1.8...

Both files are 5472 pixels wide, which translates to a 27" print at 200ppi. Look at them at 50% on screen to emulate that print size.

I ask you this: if you were carrying a camera on vacation, thought you might capture some scenes worthy of exhibiting at that sort of print size and could be confident of shooting at low ISO, which would you rather take? And please ignore the fact that the Sony camera costs and weighs less than the Nikon lens alone. Just choose on IQ.

Click for full sized images

Sony

_DSC0170

Nikon

_DSC4134-Edit

Now, one might observe that the centre resolution is better on the Nikon frame - and that would be true. But in a print the differences would reveal themselves only to the closest observer. Whereas the blurred right hand side would be clearly visible. And if one were to decide to take the Nikon, frame wider and then crop so as to lose the blur on the right, one would end up with a frame of roughly the same pixel dimensions as the Sony...

Food for thought.