Nikon’s Service Notice on the 70-200 VRII Issue

Dealers breathe a sign of relief on Jan 2oth with Nikon’s service note [better late than never right?], which sort of re-establishes the market value of the lens, even for the affected ones. Despite this, a lot of people will still prefer [given the choice] a defect free lens. So, I don’t think it is going to be that easy to get rid of one’s stock. This means that if you haven’t bought the lens yet you might as well wait a little longer. I wouldn’t be surprised to see major mail-order dealers selling their remaining stock of affected lenses at a big discount soon enough.

Since we are on the subject, I have calculated the focal length at INF using the known position of stars , the [averaged] results are:

Exif (mm)         Calculated (mm)

@70                            72.5

@86                            85.7

@105                        106.8

@200                        198.6

Of course, lens distortions do affect the results but overall pretty much on the spot.

Nikon’s 70-200VRII Issue Blunder

So far, the little feedback people got came from Nikon’s service centers, each one chipping-in their own ad-hoc version of the causes and effects. Such uncoordinated response is not, per say, reassuring and reassurance is what affected customers want and expect from Nikon. The all thing is now getting completely out of control with people returning their lenses by the bucket and dealers wanting to get rid of the stock they have asap. This will have a negative impact in present and future product sales not to mention the damage already done to Nikon’s brand image. After this, who is not going to think that a thorough check of the lens or camera is the sensible thing to do before handing over their credit card details? And what about pre-ordering the new stuff? The message from Nikon’s customers is clear: We care about performance but we also expect products that aren’t cheap not to look cheap!

I was a production engineer in a major manufacturer of brown goods a long time ago and what I believe happened is that Nikon knew there was a quality issue with this specific part but they decided to ship anyway to meet the forecasted demand for the Xmas shopping season. These kind of ‘mistakes’ just don’t happen, not in the numbers we are seeing and not without the management being fully briefed and their go-ahead.

In the end this tainted affair is Nikon’s own fault and I believe they deserve every bit of the heat they are getting. Also, the absence [so far] of an official position clearly shows that Nikon still has a lot to learn in the customer relations Dept.

Feedback from Nikon Repair about 70-200 VR II issues

Just spoke in person with a couple of guys from Nikon Repair.

Apparently the official line from Nikon will be that the issues observed do not affect the lens optical performance but they will replace the part in question if the customer so wishes. Customers who have bought the lens [and registered] the lens with Nikon will be notified.

The problem is that no replacement parts are not in stock and will only be in stock in about 3-4 weeks time.