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Third Party Manufacturers / At least we have Canon quality control
« on: November 22, 2012, 11:31:43 PM »
I stopped by my favourite hang out, my local camera store, the other day. I perhaps spend a little too much time there since I appear to be on a first name basis with literally every employee there... but I digress.
While chatting to the people to whom I like to give lots of money in exchange for fancy photographic toys, I asked them how the 5D mk III was doing against the D800. The answer actually surprised me, given the doomsday prophecies you hear around here. Apparently, they've had more returns for the D800, and the D4 and D600 to a lesser extent, than any other camera. I know the left-focusing problem on the D800 was one of the big ones, as was the dust in the D600, but apparently lots of little things have been going wrong, too. It would appear that Nikon's quality control might be in need of a shakeup.
My purpose here isn't to light a Nikon flag on fire and piss boiling oil into its eyes. I actually have an enormous respect for Nikon and have long maintained that the photographer makes the camera, not the other way around. Hell, I've seen some pretty jaw-droppingly amazing stuff come out of the Pentax K series that makes anything I've ever shot with my 5D mk III look like a pile of crap. My point, rather, is to express a thought I've held for some time now: balance. It seems to me that there's been a balance between Nikon and Canon for a while now. There always seems to be some kind of equalising factor that restores this balance so that, in the end, neither has such a huge advantage that tips the balance too far to one side.
Anyway, given some of the posts I've read about how Canon is dying and Nikon is the glorious saviour that will lead us all to the promised land, I thought that a bit of a reality check might be in order.
While chatting to the people to whom I like to give lots of money in exchange for fancy photographic toys, I asked them how the 5D mk III was doing against the D800. The answer actually surprised me, given the doomsday prophecies you hear around here. Apparently, they've had more returns for the D800, and the D4 and D600 to a lesser extent, than any other camera. I know the left-focusing problem on the D800 was one of the big ones, as was the dust in the D600, but apparently lots of little things have been going wrong, too. It would appear that Nikon's quality control might be in need of a shakeup.
My purpose here isn't to light a Nikon flag on fire and piss boiling oil into its eyes. I actually have an enormous respect for Nikon and have long maintained that the photographer makes the camera, not the other way around. Hell, I've seen some pretty jaw-droppingly amazing stuff come out of the Pentax K series that makes anything I've ever shot with my 5D mk III look like a pile of crap. My point, rather, is to express a thought I've held for some time now: balance. It seems to me that there's been a balance between Nikon and Canon for a while now. There always seems to be some kind of equalising factor that restores this balance so that, in the end, neither has such a huge advantage that tips the balance too far to one side.
Anyway, given some of the posts I've read about how Canon is dying and Nikon is the glorious saviour that will lead us all to the promised land, I thought that a bit of a reality check might be in order.