Bad news: if you own a Greyness Market Nikon D750 like I do, you may want to sit down down before reading whatsoever further. Or maybe this is not a surprise to you at all, but just the same, you lot may want to double-check and make sure your D750 is on your photo gear insurance policy!

09 Grey-Market-Nikon-D750-Service-RepairNikon D750, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR, Slik 700DX Tripod, RRS BH-xxx
1/80 sec @ f/14 & ISO 100, unmarried exposure, Adobe Lightroom CC


04 Gray-Market-Nikon-D750-Service-RepairCamera downward! Medic! Mono Lake is a very, VERY windy identify, folks.

Beginning, I exercise need to give credit where it is due: the Nikon D750 is a hearty footling champ that refuses to die! Mine is still going strong, despite numerous impacts, all kinds of severe weather condition, and over a quarter-million shutter clicks of near-daily professional duty. If this isn't a poster kid for "takes a licking and keeps on clicking", I don't know what is.

[REWIND: THE NIKON D750 – IS IT THE BEST WEDDING DSLR EVER?]

03 Grey-Market-Nikon-D750-Service-RepairBattle Scars – Mono Lake, CA (The camera survived!)

Trying To Service A Gray Market Nikon D750

Nevertheless, as a responsible professional person, I decided it was time to see where I could get my D750 serviced, only to make certain everything was working properly. (Despite still focusing, metering, and exposing perfectly, I suspect the frame of the camera itself may be "tweaked", because my fast-aperture, well-nigh-infinity images have a faint tilt-shift effect. Not something the average landscape or portrait shooter would care about, but a real testify-stopper for an astro-mural photographer!)

01 Grey-Market-Nikon-D750-Service-Repair Nikon D750, Rokinon 14mm f/2.viii, Slik 700DX Tripod, RRS BH-30
Four eight-infinitesimal exposures, Processed in LR CC and stacked in PS CC

Here's the deal with "Grayness Market place" if you're a Nikon shooter; Dissimilar Canon, who will service a grey production if you are willing to pay them, Nikon USA will refuse to even touch a grey item, even if you moving ridge cash in your hands and beg them to take it from you.

However, here's what isn't talked about very much: "Nikon Usa" has just two (?) official service centers; 1 (near me) in Los Angeles, and one on the East Coast. At that place are third-party repair shops all around the country. In fact, there's more than than one within driving altitude of where I live!

So, I thought, no problem. I'll just go get my D750 serviced at ane of the third-party repair shops. I've taken my other cameras there, and even serious body work is only $300. I saved much more than that when I bought a grey market place D750, so I'm happy to pay for a repair! Besides, in my instance, near of the impairment that happens is the blazon that conspicuously doesn't autumn nether warranty (as you lot tin can see). So why pay actress for something I never get to use?

05 Grey-Market-Nikon-D750-Service-Repair

Mixed Replies From Authorized Tertiary-Political party Nikon Repair Centers

Here's where my assumptions defenseless upwardly with me; I walked into ane of the local third-party repair shops, and was promptly told they couldn't help me. Why not, I asked? Not because it's grayness, only because their technicians aren't even so trained on the D750, so all of their D750 repairs just get shipped to Nikon factory service anyways. (At this fourth dimension, the D750 has been around for near 1.five years.) So, I'm out of luck.

This seemed odd to me. I did as much online searching as I could. Surely in some nighttime corner of the cyberspace, I would observe a collection of complaints about third-party Nikon service technicians or getting the D750 in item, serviced. Subsequently all, it practically set a world record for shortest time between being appear and striking eBay in gray marketplace class.

Not one single forum post did I notice. Not one single tweet about specific restrictions on 3rd-party Nikon service centers, or technician preparation, etc. So, I started calling every other third-party repair store I could discover, anywhere in the state. The responses were such a baroque mixed bag; I'll just bullet them hither:

  • The first third-party service eye: Can't fix a D750, menstruum, because they're not trained. And when I asked if they had any idea when D750 training might happen or if they had ever serviced other grey market Nikon items, things got awkward, and I received no solid answer.
  • The next local store I called said there was no such thing as "official training for specific cameras" and they could ready anything! Grey marketplace or not, bring it on downwards! Hmm. Then I asked if their technicians were officially trained by Nikon at all or if they were an authorized repair facility, but they too started sounding shady and ambiguous.

(Yep, there is such a thing as an authorized third-party repair centre. Unfortunately, Nikon has inverse their online repair interface, and I can't observe the same list that I used to have bookmarked).

  • The third shop I contacted, an official authorized third-party service eye, told me they only don't accept grey marketplace cameras. When pressed as to why (is it simply a business decision or is information technology that they'd make it trouble with Nikon USA?), I got my third not-reply! Instead, I got something along the lines of "some customers send u.s. grey market cameras, merely nosotros but send them back un-repaired. Y'all're welcome to send u.s. your grey photographic camera and run into what happens, though."
  • The fourth place (that actually responded) FINALLY gave a relatively direct and hopeful answer: they were indeed an official, authorized Nikon service centre, and they could, in fact, service my greyness D750, just and so long as long as it didn't need to be sent to the manufactory. Hmm… I'll recall about it.

06 Gray-Market-Nikon-D750-Service-Repair

08 Gray-Market-Nikon-D750-Service-Repair Nikon D750, Rokinon 14mm f/2.eight, Slik 700DX tripod, RRS BH-30
Single exposure, Lightroom CC processing

Grey Market Cannot Exist Serviced In the Usa, Period?

Clearly the restrictions for grey market Nikon service go beyond Nikon U.s.'s select few official locations, and (near) none of the tertiary-party repair centers want to even talk about it. But why? If Nikon U.s.a. has forbidden everyone from servicing a greyness marketplace Nikon in the Us, why non just say that?

More importantly, what should I exercise? I could endeavour my luck with an unauthorized camera shop, or I could ship my camera off to a lone store that sounded promising and honest. But first, I needed to either confirm my suspicions or lay them to rest, so I contacted the wisest Nikon guru I know, Thom Hogan, after reading his article on grey market Nikon products here.

Basically, that's exactly it; When Nikon says "no warranty, no service" on grey marketplace products, they mean it! I don't even know if I should share the names of which repair shops gave me which responses, lest some sort of "Nikon service police" show upwards at their doors. (Neither am I into shaming, unless I'm 100% certain that something is a specific person's fault). A few telephone calls or emails can give you the same results, though.

Suffice it to say, I'm rather disappointed that Nikon'south policy towards grey market place gear is and then much more ambitious than I had causeless, and I'yard also disappointed that even after years of this, there's still and then little chatter on the internet about the details of third-party grayness market service.

And then even though I clearly have only myself to blame for not fully investigating the matter before trying to save a few hundred bucks, I thought I would share my feel and hopefully help increment the amount of information that is out at that place on this subject. The moral of the story? Think twice before buying grey marketplace. Or, if you lot heavily abuse your gear similar I exercise, at least, get it well-insured!

Take care, (of your cameras!)
=Matt=