Experience with Nikon Service? - HELP- NEED ADVICE!

[Gdad]

I am so so sooo irritated. My camera shipped out from Nikon Service on Monday with ETA for today. UPS usually comes late anyway but I checked the tracking number (again) a few minutes ago and saw this message...

7:10 P.M. A CORRECT STREET NUMBER IS NEEDED FOR DELIVERY. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION

A call to UPS shows Nikon sent the package to House number 3009 instead of 2209. And my local UPS customer service center closed at 6:00 today with no weekend hours. They tell me they will 'make another attempt' on Monday.

Now the UPS website says this...

8:13 P.M. A DELIVERY CHANGE REQUEST FOR THIS PACKAGE WILL BE PROCESSED;DELIVERY TO AN ALTERNATE ADDRESS WAS REQUESTED

Ugh.

 

[tinksdad]

Jeez!! What a bummer!

So sorry, hope you got the address issue cleared up.

 

[Gdad]

You won't believe this one- Did a few test shots on Monday when I got it back and problem was fixed. Took some pictures today and it has 2 NEW hot pixils. Called Nikon Service and told them and they just say I can send it back in if I want to.

It took 3 1/2 weeks the first time- that was with me overnighting it to them. I have my daughters once a year dance recital two weeks from Friday and am leaving for vacation and out of town that weekend (my DD6 is flower girl). They said they would 'try to' expedite it under such circumstances but really could not guarantee any dates.

Now I need to decide if I want to just clone them out of every dance/wedding/vacation shot or take my chances with N.S. again. I just hope no more show up- I went almost a year with none and now have 4 in a few weeks time most of which the camera was not even being used much.

I am curious to see if the UPS label N.S. is supposedly emailing me will even be for next day...

HELP- WHAT DO I DO???

 

[Master Mason]

I would keep the camera, no since taking a chance on not getting your memories

ETA: of course you could send it, and then if it didn't come you'd have a reason to go get that D200 your drooling over

 

[tinksdad]

I was thinking the other day about your situation and wanted to ask if all was OK...... Sorry to hear that.

I'd keep it too! With an impending deadline it will just make you crazy to wait with no guarantee. Send it in afterwords!! With some luck you might not even see the hot pixels in some shots.

Have you researched this problem? Are some cameras prone to HP or is this just your luck??? I've had the D200 for about a year and half and haven't noticed anything (yet). Wondering if Nikon was having problem with that sensor?

 

[Gdad]

I don't know- I read some stuff on the new D80 having a hot pixel problem when it was first released but thats about it. I had the D70s for almost a year without a problem- now 4 in about a month and all in the lower left quarter of the sensor. I asked them how many until they replace the sensor and he said it was up to the service tech. He said the first two were just 'mapped out'.

I was thinking the other day about your situation and wanted to ask if all was OK...... Sorry to hear that.

I'd keep it too! With an impending deadline it will just make you crazy to wait with no guarantee. Send it in afterwords!! With some luck you might not even see the hot pixels in some shots.

Have you researched this problem? Are some cameras prone to HP or is this just your luck??? I've had the D200 for about a year and half and haven't noticed anything (yet). Wondering if Nikon was having problem with that sensor?

 

[ukcatfan]

GDAD,

What RAW converter are you using? Is it able to map the bad pixels out on every shot? I am pretty sure that Bibble can andI believe it has a fully functional trial period, so you could use that for a few weeks while the important events are going on.

I say ask for them to replace it with a D80. Or you could ask for a refund on all your gear and switch over to the dark side.

Kevin

 

[Gdad]

There's an idea- I use Photoshop CS2 and Bridge- not sure if/how that would work with that....

GDAD,

What RAW converter are you using? Is it able to map the bad pixels out on every shot? I am pretty sure that Bibble can andI believe it has a fully functional trial period, so you could use that for a few weeks while the important events are going on.

I say ask for them to replace it with a D80. Or you could ask for a refund on all your gear and switch over to the dark side.

Kevin

 

[ukcatfan]

There's an idea- I use Photoshop CS2 and Bridge- not sure if/how that would work with that....

I do not think ACR has anything like that.

Bibble will work similar to ACR and I am pretty sure you can link it to CS2. You basically set up a default setting to apply to all images that has the hot pixels corrected. It allows 16 bit TIFF output, so you can still do some after the fact editing in PS without IQ loss like JPGs have. I would stick to the basics though. Be sure to uncheck their auto correction before making any changes, or they will not work as you expect. I was not really impressed with the noise reduction it has, so I did it after the RAW processing step. Also, some of the more powerful tools seemed to be hidden in the menus instead of visible in the default layout.

Kevin

 

[Groucho]

Is there a noise reduction setting in the camera, and if so, do you have it turned off? Potentially that's something that could help the camera automatically eliminate the hot pixels... but it probably only works on long exposures.

That's a bummer - I thought I found one in a couple of my pics but then it was gone again, maybe just a glitch or perhaps only shows up in long exposures (I have noise reduction off) - I actually saw it when zooming in on the LCD on the camera but I don't think I was able to find that pixel when I looked at the pic on the PC, weird.

Good luck! Or, like Kevin says, just take this as an excuse to move on to a D80 and keep the D70 as a backup, or "spouse's camera", that's worked for a few people around here. I'm planning on using that technique myself, my wife's going on a girl's-only cruise next January and I'm going to send her with my DSLR, but maybe I'll have a higher-model one by then myself.

 

[Gdad]

Well I sent it off this morning with explicit instructions to return it by 5/31 or else I would be ‘forced’ by them to buy a replacement. I felt a little better after talking to another guy there last night who did everything short of say the word ‘promise’ in getting it back on time. We shall see.

The hot pixel is particularly annoying because there is a thin red line that extends down from it to the bottom of the frame. It would not be a big deal to clone out one little spot but the line is very irritating and noticible even in the lcd display.

This is 100% crop from the first time...