D810 Build quality - Warning

[chris dees]

As I posted in an other thread; my D810 + TC 1.4x and 300PF after a drop of about 60 cm.
Same kind of damage as with Bjørn's Df.

[Alaun]

The cracks look like brittle cracks. The material probably was chosen for stiffness but seems to have too little toughness. It is not the carbon reinforced material used for F1 chassis, it is some kind of mouldable material.

[Akira]

What I know is that these newer camera are - literally - killed by impacts that older cameras survived. In such a context, the assertion "stronger than steel" becomes relatively meaningless.

My Df after not that extreme drop (50 cm): mount screws ripped out, mirrorbox destroyed.

Bjørn, how was the lens?  Did it survive?

The shutter responce of D800/800E is the same as that of D-1-digit bodies, whereas D810 belongs to the same league as D600/610/750/7x00.  Nikon designer sacrificed the response to slower the mirror movement to dampen the shock.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

My 300 PF apparently survived well. It focuses correctly whether AF or MF, VR is operational, and sharpness seems fine. No detectable decentering.

[Akira]

My 300 PF apparently survived well. It focuses correctly whether AF or MF, VR is operational, and sharpness seems fine. No detectable decentering.

Thanks, so the construction apparently saved the lens, while all-metal construction might have worked differently.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

... at the expense of a totally wrecked camera.

[Akira]

... at the expense of a totally wrecked camera.

Well, yes.  But if the lens were an expensive super-tele, a wrecked camera would be less worse.

[bjornthun]

A wrecked camera can't be used with the lenses still safely stored in your bag. Then a pro must rely on a backup camera and so on, which the pro on assignment hopefully has got available?

[Netr]

Have any of you heard of technology used on ships - sacrificial anodes? This is a piece of zinc bolted to the hull to preferentially corrode instead of a more important part, such as a propellor shaft. Since corrosion is going to happen regardless, better to make it happen to something less important.

I have some engineering background and think it is a good design approach to provide for a relatively cheap and easily accessed camera part to break in case of accident, thus protecting more expensive and difficult to access parts.

If you want to use a 100% metal camera, try a Kiev 60.

[bjornthun]

The great fun with lenses is every time you get home and can see the images you got with them.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I think a compromise here is best.

While I would not consider a lens something to be caressed like a baby, there is no creative or other benefit from treating it like rubbish, either. I totally understand that when working in the field day in and day out, for long periods of time, eventually accidents happen, it is unavoidable given the way humans are. However by applying a little addtional care when storing and transporting gear, unnecessary wear is avoided. I and my coworkers have built some optics instrumentation for our research over the course of many years and some of it is quite fragile and arguably it has become irreplaceable. We sometimes transport the equipment in a van between cities. Having built it and adjusted it (and repaired it many times with great effort) it has taught us to treat it with respect.

If one is well enough off that one can replace it without a second thought, one can easily forget the work that was needed to make it in the first place. I mean this with no disrespect. I think field work can be extremely demanding and strenuous and I've dropped equiment when I've been tired.

[MFloyd]

I did not get the same reading of John Korner's posts i.e. being "rude or impolite", but, even in this very civilized forum, there are some subjects you better avoid ...  So, in the eventuality a post emerges about red Peugeots, I will refrain from any participation 😎

[HCS]

My D810 is fine and i do indeed carry the camera at the lens base when any lens longer than 50mm is attached (size wise). My D2h dropped off the table once (approx. 90 cm), because somehow the camera strap hooked into someone's arm and pulled it off the table. Lens (24 F/2.8 AIS) damaged filter ring, camera totally unharmed. I had the camera for one whole day at that point.

I learned from this, but sincerely hope my D810 doesn't follow this same path.

[arthurking83]

A wrecked camera can't be used with the lenses still safely stored in your bag. Then a pro must rely on a backup camera and so on, which the pro on assignment hopefully has got available?

I'd be inclined to think a busted camera is the less worse option here.
How many photographers go out on a mission with a backup lens?
The general consensus is that a backup(or two) cameras is a requirement for pro use.

If this is the case, then a busted lens is disastrous by way of comparison .. what good to have a backup camera available if there is no lens to use it with.

So, using such rationale, a plastic mount isn't such a dealbreaker .. and in fact is probably the better and 'safer bet'
That is, if you're out in the field(and I literally mean field ... remote location with no access to lens repairing facilities!) and there is the possibility that you could damage your gear the chances that you have backup lenses is small to none. You may have multiple lenses, but they will all be different and hence inappropriate for the intended purpose.
But! .... you will almost certainly have backup camera .. maybe we all don't, but many of us do.

Also, if the only real advantage to the plastics use in the mount is for cost reduction, then a simple $1 addition of a series of captive nuts on a metal retaining ring on the rear side of the plastic mount could easily strengthen this plastic mount design.
The way I see it is that the plastic mount design in itself isn't the issue ... the use of cheap self tapping screws is(into plastic).

As has been said a few times already, the issue is that once a force that is sufficient to break one screw has been reached there is a cascading effect and the mount will break.
The use of captive nuts on a metal ring on the rear side of the plastic mount should alleviate this ...

Are Nikon really so pressed for cost cutting that they can't even employ an engineer that could have thought of that!

[bjornthun]

Arthur King 83: I did not mean backup lenses, rather I meant a selection of lenses like a wide angle, normal a tele and say zoom of some kind. Sorry if my post wasn't clear on that. For example a wrecked wide angle but ok camera would let you use your other lenses, if you had only brought that one camera.