Nikon NY Repair Center

hark

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Has anyone used the Nikon repair center in New York within the past few months? My 300mm f/4 PF has an AF problem as well as a VR issue and needs to be assessed/repaired. In the meantime, I've been using my 300mm f/4 non-VR lens, but it too is having AF issues (AF is loud/grinding and sometimes simply won't lock focus). With this lens I wind up having play with the lens' switches which seems to get the AF to work properly for a short time. Had a flying Great Blue Heron framed up with settings dialed in ahead of time. Nope. Missed it because nothing worked - well, actually the shutter fired, but the 2 images are totally out of focus. Played with the switches again, and viola' it began working.

Curious to hear if their repairs are okay as well as how long it takes from the time a piece of Nikon gear is mailed out. Getting into the holidays here in the US so I'm more than a little apprehensive - especially with places cutting back on employees due to COVID.
 

Whiskeyman

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I have not used them in about two or three years. When I did, they exceeded nearly all performance expectations, and did a lot more work on my camera than they were obligated to accomplish due to a recall.

BTW, the only performance they didn't exceed was the turn-around time, which was good. They got the camera back to me much faster than they indicated was likely when I contacted them about sending it in.

Mind you, this was pre-COVID, so it has no bearing on how things might be now.

Do you have the issue on more than one camera? I'm assuming that you've gotten the same results with more than one of your cameras and these lenses...

Anyway, good luck with getting it fixed. I'd say get it in so they can start on it, because it sounds like you can't be confident that the gear will work when you need it to.

WM
 

hark

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Do you have the issue on more than one camera? I'm assuming that you've gotten the same results with more than one of your cameras and these lenses...
WM

Thanks for your input, WM! And yes, the issues aren't limited to any one body. :( Both lenses were pre-owned, but both worked fine when I received them.
 

cbg

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Sent my D500 in last month to have the lens mount replaced. It broke when it fell out of my truck with the Sigma 150-600(C0 attached. Took about 10 days for the repairs and there have been no problems with it since it came back to me.
 

hark

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Sent my D500 in last month to have the lens mount replaced. It broke when it fell out of my truck with the Sigma 150-600(C0 attached. Took about 10 days for the repairs and there have been no problems with it since it came back to me.

Thanks, cbg! I appreciate knowing. :)
 

Fred Kingston

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Cindy... Are you sure they want you to send it to NY? When I had the same issues with a 28-300 2.8 a couple of years ago, when I went to their on-line repair entry system, it directed me to Los Angeles as being the facility that did that work... They were very good (well, as good as any small company, they're NOT Amazon) at tracking the lens thru their system... Of course, I sent it second-day air, but I recall, they returned it ground...
 

hark

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Cindy... Are you sure they want you to send it to NY? When I had the same issues with a 28-300 2.8 a couple of years ago, when I went to their on-line repair entry system, it directed me to Los Angeles as being the facility that did that work... They were very good (well, as good as any small company, they're NOT Amazon) at tracking the lens thru their system... Of course, I sent it second-day air, but I recall, they returned it ground...

Fred, I'd have to ask them where they do the actual repairs. When I had all those problems with the D600 oil spots, the NY repair facility was the one that did the work. The camera was sent to and received from NY - quite often with no more than a 7 day turn around time from the day I sent it (via UPS ground, too).
 

Fred Kingston

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Yes... That's where they did my D600 too... but I think if you enter that lens in their on-line repair system... It'll point you to their LA for lens repairs...
 

hark

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Yes... That's where they did my D600 too... but I think if you enter that lens in their on-line repair system... It'll point you to their LA for lens repairs...

And that's definitely possible. With this being the week of Thanksgiving, I want to hold off. But my biggest concern is the increased number of packages that will be shipped between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I might wait until January but obviously need to do something soon.
 

nikonpup

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Nikon's web site says California is closed due to virus and a move. Send it to New York, insure you lens for full value and hope they lose it, or they get your lens give you an estimate and you have it for a Xmas present.
 

hark

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Nikon's web site says California is closed due to virus and a move. Send it to New York, insure you lens for full value and hope they lose it, or they get your lens give you an estimate and you have it for a Xmas present.

Well...There you go... Ca. is closed... I guess NY gets the work...

Thanks for the info, nikonpup. ;) Let's just hope NY will remain open as I'm not going to contact them until next week.

Today I took my non-VR 300mm out - although I didn't see anything to photograph, at least the back button worked and overall the lens was a little quieter while focusing. :encouragement:
 

Woodyg3

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I had to send my 200-500 to NY for repair of the VR system a few weeks ago. It was about a 9 day turn-around with shipping taking 5 of those days. Very fast and the problem was fixed.
 

hark

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I had to send my 200-500 to NY for repair of the VR system a few weeks ago. It was about a 9 day turn-around with shipping taking 5 of those days. Very fast and the problem was fixed.

Thanks, Woody! I appreciate the info and hearing they did a good job. :)
 

BackdoorArts

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With CA closed I'm guessing NY is slower than normal. If you get stuck and are hearing nothing let me know, I've got a spare 300mm PF in the drawer and could meet you half way. Yeah, I know. Embarrassment of riches.
 

hark

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With CA closed I'm guessing NY is slower than normal. If you get stuck and are hearing nothing let me know, I've got a spare 300mm PF in the drawer and could meet you half way. Yeah, I know. Embarrassment of riches.

Thank you SO much, Jake. I will let you know.
 

hark

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Honestly I'm not ready to send my lens to Nikon just yet. Having sent my D600 back 3x for the oil spot problem (and wound up getting a refund for the body), sending in a lens for a problem that was repaired but came back with a huge dust bunny inside the rear element causing the lens to go back a second time, and my SB-910 where batteries leaked (sent it out to them, too) and after using it twice for a total of 110 flashes before it failed, I am really hesitant to use their service. Plus we will be getting into the busiest time to ship packages. Definitely not thrilled to send anything until January. So I'm going to keep testing and experimenting for now.

I'm still trying to do everything possible to identify any issues with my 300mm f/4 PF lens. Yesterday I calibrated the lens numerous times with values that went from +1 up to +9 (and +9 was the one number that came up much more than the others). Today I went out in hopes of having more success.

Below are a few examples - but honestly there were some that turned out okay; however, the majority were still a little soft. So I might override the +9 manually and increase the value. Another thing I'm going to do is to cut through my Easy Cover (silicone cover for my D500) and expose the back button for my thumb to make direct contact. I've used these covers on every Nikon DSLR, but this D500 model doesn't make good contact with the back button. Even after exchanging it for a second Easy Cover...nope. When I contacted Easy Cover asking if anyone else was having trouble with the D500 cover, they said no. Sometimes the AF doesn't engage because of how the cover sits on that back button. It seems to require frequent adjusting to get it to make proper contact with the button.

This eagle image is cropped quite a bit and is a vertical crop from a horizontal image. There were really tall weeds right in front of me, and with the wind blowing, most of the images look as though I'm shooting through some type of thin material. At least this one gave me an idea of where I'm at since changing to +9 for AF tuning. It did require quite a bit of editing which I didn't used to do before this lens started having problems.

_DSC2056 low res.jpg


This next one was only edited in Camera RAW. It's slightly soft.

_DSC2129 low res.jpg


Below is the same image after taking it into the Nik Collection (Color EFEX Pro). Still couldn't achieve the quality that I usually get while editing with that plug-in because of the overall softness.

_DSC2129 full edit low res.jpg


And here's yet another that just missed sharpness a little. However, it's definitely better than what I was getting before doing the AF tuning for lens calibration. In all honesty, I just didn't put much effort into this edit either since it missed focus a little bit. I will play with the AF tuning values to see if going higher has any benefit. One thing I noticed is seagulls that were very close and wouldn't have required cropping either were in focus or slightly soft. I would have thought that changing the AF tuning to +9 would have caused the focus on all close subjects to be compromised. When I did the AF tuning, I was at least 80 feet from my target - trying to replicate a real shooting situation. So it is surprising to notice that some close subjects were sharp.

_DSC2158 low res.jpg
 
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hark

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One of the eagle images where the weeds blew across in front of my lens (sooc unedited jpeg resized for the forum).

_DSC2064 unedited low res.jpg


Edited the RAW file but not enough detail in the eagle due to the weeds. Would have been a comical image though. ;)

_DSC2064 low res.jpg
 

hark

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Yesterday manually set the AF tuning to +15, but that didn't help. So today I went back out and did another round of calibrations. This time came up with +7 several times. Haven't yet had a chance to test it out because my mom was in the hospital and was ready to be discharged. However, while the camera was on the tripod, I noticed the lens was slow to focus while in the mid-range. Once it reached the infinity mark, AF seemed to be quicker to lock focus on Steve Perry's focus chart. Whether that is due to the lens having an issue, I don't know. Maybe tomorrow or Monday I can get back out and take some photos to see if +7 makes any difference. I will also pay attention to whether or not the images are in focus thru the viewfinder with the focus indicator (something I don't pay attention to with any of my bodies).
 
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