MY D800 AF issues

[daredevil123]

opps... I did not send any sample pics but frankly, what can they tell from an out of focus pic? I have literally hundreds of OOO pics taken over the 2 years using the 35mm....

It helps. especially if the pics are done in a controlled environment.. like on a tripod. Not talking about your everyday pics of your beautiful family on vacations... because in those conditions they can easily conclude it is user error.

And like they always say, a picture says a thousand words.

 

[dniwkh]

It helps. especially if the pics are done in a controlled environment.. like on a tripod. Not talking about your everyday pics of your beautiful family on vacations... because in those conditions they can easily conclude it is user error.

And like they always say, a picture says a thousand words.

that brings us back to the discussion that some problems NSC cannot solve. Frankly, is the D800 meant to be only used on a tripod? If my D800 focuses perfectly on a tripod does it mean NSC cannot help me with my AF issue?

If you give the D800 controlled environment, I think it will focus fine but who uses the D800 under controlled circumstances??? It does not help me or my problem.

The technician just needs to try out my lens+D800 under AFC and attempt to track a person walking towards him. Look at the hit rate. Is that normal? I don't know what is the normal hit rate as I only have one D800 and one 35mm. If it is user error, I am sure the technician can handle my D800+35mm better than I. Maybe some of my AF settings were set wrongly.

If the technician shows me that my D800 can do AFC (with side AF points) with a decent hit rate on a person at WALKING speed, then I am happy. I will work hard to improve my technique It is not that hard to test this right? We can do it right at NSC itself, with the technician handling my D800+35mm to prevent any "user" error.

I also understand AFC is not 100% hit rate. I am curious what NSC consider as normal hit rate for AFC tracking a walking person. I can publish what hit rate the NSC considered as normal under such circumstances. Is it like 25%, 50%, 75% or 90%?

 

[daredevil123]

that brings us back to the discussion that some problems NSC cannot solve. Frankly, is the D800 meant to be only used on a tripod? If my D800 focuses perfectly on a tripod does it mean NSC cannot help me with my AF issue?

If you give the D800 controlled environment, I think it will focus fine but who uses the D800 under controlled circumstances??? It does not help me or my problem.

The technician just needs to try out my lens+D800 under AFC and attempt to track a person walking towards him. Look at the hit rate. Is that normal? I don't know what is the normal hit rate as I only have one D800 and one 35mm. If it is user error, I am sure the technician can handle my D800+35mm better than I. Maybe some of my AF settings were set wrongly.

If the technician shows me that my D800 can do AFC (with side AF points) with a decent hit rate on a person at WALKING speed, then I am happy. I will work hard to improve my technique It is not that hard to test this right? We can do it right at NSC itself, with the technician handling my D800+35mm to prevent any "user" error.

I also understand AFC is not 100% hit rate. I am curious what NSC consider as normal hit rate for AFC tracking a walking person. I can publish what hit rate the NSC considered as normal under such circumstances. Is it like 25%, 50%, 75% or 90%?

What I feel is your problem is the left AF issue that happened on quite a number of units from the early batches. It is solvable. Many has stated NSC did point for point AF mapping and fixed the problem. You probably need to be more specific to the technical staff. I think there is no point going over it again and again here as that will not solve any problems. You have to work with the technicians. They are not photographers. And they have a very very heavy workload with many items in queue in NSC. If you can work together with them to pinpoint the problem faster, it will be more effective.

It comes down to the willingness on your part to show the problem for the technicians to fix. If you expect the technician to troubleshoot, he may not be able to replicate the issue and return a "normal" status to you. If you want a problem solved, try to at least put in some effort to provide enough info and samples, instead of asking the support staff to show you "acceptable" AF performance. It is so subjective, in very different conditions... so what do you expect the result to be?

 

[dniwkh]

What I feel is your problem is the left AF issue that happened on quite a number of units from the early batches. It is solvable. Many has stated NSC did point for point AF mapping and fixed the problem. You probably need to be more specific to the technical staff. I think there is no point going over it again and again here as that will not solve any problems. You have to work with the technicians. They are not photographers. And they have a very very heavy workload with many items in queue in NSC. If you can work together with them to pinpoint the problem faster, it will be more effective.

It comes down to the willingness on your part to show the problem for the technicians to fix. If you expect the technician to troubleshoot, he may not be able to replicate the issue and return a "normal" status to you. If you want a problem solved, try to at least put in some effort to provide enough info and samples, instead of asking the support staff to show you "acceptable" AF performance. It is so subjective, in very different conditions... so what do you expect the result to be?

agreed. I did try to call NSC up just now to try to give more information but the receptionist said my description is enough. I do not have direct access to the technicians and I guess they will call me if they have queries.

I think if NSC says a camera is "normal" they should qualify it with some testing. I mean tracking a walking human subject under controlled Nikon service center lighting, using a Nikon DSLR with a Nikon Lens by a Nikon technician is about as controlled as I can think of. I am not asking them to cover all conditions which is unrealistic, just one controlled condition.

Is that too much to ask? It will just take a few minutes at the service center. I am willing to live with whatever NSC says is normal as I understand the hit rate is will never be 100%.

 

[daredevil123]

agreed. I did try to call NSC up just now to try to give more information but the receptionist said my description is enough. I do not have direct access to the technicians and I guess they will call me if they have queries.

I think if NSC says a camera is "normal" they should qualify it with some testing. I mean tracking a walking human subject under controlled Nikon service center lighting, using a Nikon DSLR with a Nikon Lens by a Nikon technician is about as controlled as I can think of. I am not asking them to cover all conditions which is unrealistic, just one controlled condition.

Is that too much to ask? It will just take a few minutes at the service center. I am willing to live with whatever NSC says is normal as I understand the hit rate is will never be 100%.

Call? why don't you do it there, bring a laptop down and show it.

Some kinds of indoor lighting can give very mixed results due to the flicker... I think me and someone else mentioned it before. No technician will do subject tracking in NSC or any camera service center for that matter. They have a lot more work than you can imagine. They will do a quick 2 min check. If it looks ok when testing with charts, they will sign off as normal. That is standard SOP. You need to give them a reason to look further. And calling doesn't really matter. Bring it down, with your pictures and show. Sometimes the technician do come out and talk.

 

[dniwkh]

Call? why don't you do it there, bring a laptop down and show it.

Some kinds of indoor lighting can give very mixed results due to the flicker... I think me and someone else mentioned it before. No technician will do subject tracking in NSC or any camera service center for that matter. They have a lot more work than you can imagine. They will do a quick 2 min check. If it looks ok when testing with charts, they will sign off as normal. That is standard SOP. You need to give them a reason to look further. And calling doesn't really matter. Bring it down, with your pictures and show. Sometimes the technician do come out and talk.

I really don't understand what you are saying. When I went to NSC, the technician did not come out and basically all I saw was the receptionist which I believe is SOP.
The technician did not even bother to speak to me on my recent call, what makes you think if I go down, the super busy technician will have time to meet up with me?

Anyway i dont think you represent nsc. i will let them take a look at my cam and revert. if they need more info i will be happy to go down. no point speculating, for all i know, nsc may be able to pin point my issue

 

[Luminare]

Could it be that your LH focus point accuracy on the D800 is out in the context that it is forward or backward focused so much on the 35mm f/1.4G that when you are on AF-C that the phase detection is out and that is why it keeps hunting?

Why not have NSC AF fine tune both the D800 sensor and 35mm f/1.4G to get the focus "Zeroed" then test out the AF-C again?

I say this because I know some D800 need to AF fine tune on different amounts on different lens. My 24mm f/1.4G was minus 7 and I think 14-24mm was minus 12 until NSC tuned my D800 sensor sometime back in April 2013 together with the firmware update. After that, it was gone. Before the fine tune, the 24 mm f/1.4G when used to AF-C on a back lit ASUS lap top tends to hunt around at 0.3m at f/1.4 on 2-3 points on the LH side.

That was just for my curiosity sake because I don't AF-C on AF points away from the center. Back then, for static shots, I focus using the known accurate AF points or center AF point and "re-frame" if I needed the subject to be in that section.

 

[dniwkh]

That was just for my curiosity sake because I don't AF-C on AF points away from the center. Back then, for static shots, I focus using the known accurate AF points or center AF point and "re-frame" if I needed the subject to be in that section.

?? For me AFC is almost always at points away from the center. The reason for using AFC is that you are shooting a moving subject. You cannot "re-frame".

For AFC, side points accuracy is critical unless you have your subjects at the center all the time...

 

[Luminare]

My subject is always almost in the center of the frame when I use AF-C.

but back to the AF issue ...... I think it is worth while to have NSC calibrate the backward/forward focus on both the senor and lens first.

?? For me AFC is almost always at points away from the center. The reason for using AFC is that you are shooting a moving subject. You cannot "re-frame".

For AFC, side points accuracy is critical unless you have your subjects at the center all the time...

 

[dniwkh]

A quick update on my af issue.

Bottom line is Nikon singapore could do literally nothing about the focusing issues I have. So I had to live with my Nikon 35mm mounted on my d700 for the past year. Basically my d800 does not track focus on my Nikon 35mm f1.4 and that is it.

After the d750 was launched and with multiple reports online saying it solves the af issues, I bought a sigma 35mm and d750. Both the 35 mm lens can't focus well on the d800. I would rate the focusing on the sigma slightly better but still unuseable on the d800.

so I sold the Nikon 35mm lens and got the d750. My d750 with the sigma 35 mm was superb. The af works just like my d700 and I can track focus with like 80-90% accuracy.

My conclusion is my d800 af was crap with 35mm f1.4 lens and somehow Nikon fixed it with later models. I am not sure how wideapread this issue is but I suspect most d800 are like that. If not, then nsc should have fixed my d800 or replaced it. Either way it sucks

Thankfully, the d800 is perfect on my 70-200mm lens so I can still use it fine.

 

[daredevil123]

I am not sure how wideapread this issue is but I suspect most d800 are like that. If not, then nsc should have fixed my d800 or replaced it. Either way it sucks

That is one long shot of a assumption. Especially when i have used so many d800 with 35mm lenses and have not encountered what you described...

 

[dniwkh]

That is one long shot of a assumption. Especially when i have used so many d800 with 35mm lenses and have not encountered what you described...

If it is an isolated case, then I don't know why NSC can't do anything to fix my issue.... as I said, either way, it sucks.

Anyway the point of raising this again is to let any long suffering D800 users know that D750 AF is a significant notch above the D800 in terms of AF consistency on 35mm f1.4 lens. I learnt that from one of the reviews and took the plunge to sell my D700 and get the D750.

http://nikonrumors.com/2014/11/02/nikon-d750-camera-review-and-comparison-with-the-d810.aspx/

A pity that D750 only has 1/4000 shutter speed.

 

[JacePhoto]

I used to have a D800 cam w 24 mm f1.4, 35 mm f1.4.

D800 AF isn't that great. It was more of a studio cam w 36 megapixel. D700 is more of an events cam.

So, maybe we all need to adjust our expectation a little? Haha.

Let's move on w new cams n new technology ba.

 

[dniwkh]

I used to have a D800 cam w 24 mm f1.4, 35 mm f1.4.

D800 AF isn't that great. It was more of a studio cam w 36 megapixel. D700 is more of an events cam.

So, maybe we all need to adjust our expectation a little? Haha.

Let's move on w new cams n new technology ba.

agreed but it is kind of weird that the af module was worse in the d800 compared to d700. i used the 35mm outdoors taking moving subjects so the iso100 and huge dr of the d800 was attractive to me. thus i bought it as an upgrade to my d700. instead i kept my d700 and stuck the d800 onto my 70-200mm for two years....

i am glad that nikon got the d750 right so i can finally sell my d700 whoch i have kept gor six years i think

 

[daredevil123]

If it is an isolated case, then I don't know why NSC can't do anything to fix my issue.... as I said, either way, it sucks.

Anyway the point of raising this again is to let any long suffering D800 users know that D750 AF is a significant notch above the D800 in terms of AF consistency on 35mm f1.4 lens. I learnt that from one of the reviews and took the plunge to sell my D700 and get the D750.

http://nikonrumors.com/2014/11/02/nikon-d750-camera-review-and-comparison-with-the-d810.aspx/

A pity that D750 only has 1/4000 shutter speed.

IMHO whether a case is isolated or not has no correlation to how well they can fix it...