Those domestic tourists to Hokkaido are super annoying, every moron there wear the same or similar stupid puffers and silly dated looking blue jeans.
Some wear silly snow boots and even a layer of thick gaudy colored jackets like just out of a ski field.
Actually, I used to wear like thick puffers or like that, but I realized in 2016, it would not be Russia or North Pole and we do not need that crazy jacket. It is just about 10 degrees lower than Fukuoka or Tokyo. Nothing special. It is like the weather of Chicago or NYC, so it is cold but not as cold as it is in Norilsk, Russia or Yellowknife Canada. I visited Yellowknife in 2008, and I must say it was a real hell. It is the coldest place I have ever been to and I think I will never go back there in the winter. Compared to that, Hokkaido is nothing , just a bit colder and safer place than the rest of Japan.
I just came back to my home from Hokkaido in last week. And I am still exhausted from a tough trip(walked a lot and incessant strong wind and snow made my body very tight and I have had shingles that made me really sick ). But I still some how managed to survive but many of my cameras and lenses did not.
At the airport when I was leaving there, I realized that I just collected 6 dead lenses and 2 dead cameras this year, the weather there throughout my trip there was really that bad this year.
I was pretty pissed with both Nikon and Sony and their respective service station in Sapporo.
I was really angry at Sony and called them many times and forced them to send me a truck to pick my GM lenses up and fix them ASAP. To my surprise they provided me all of what I requested and more and my FE16-35mm f2.8G-Master lens , my FE24-70mm f2.8G-Master lens were just sent back to my house in the last week and I was shocked to see how clean these have become. I think Sony cleaned them and changed main electronic board and also the AF motor all for free. This time, I must say thank you Sony. I was quite impressed with their amazing support and service this time. I think this time I realized that Sony is serious in this game and they are winning.
My FE24mm f1.4G-Master is still at Sony Fukuoka, and I want to get it back very soon since I will sell it as it is fixed. But to be fair to Sony , it was not bought directly from Sony Store unlike my two other GM lenses. So it may take a bit more time and I do not need the 24mm GM for most of every day stuffs, so it is not a big issue for me.
I think their significantly improved support network and quality shows how serious they are about this game...and it is definitely getting better.
In contrast , Nikon support was horrible, I am still trying to have them work on my lenses and bodies , but they seem to refuse to fix my cameras and lenses(until I actually pay 1500 USD or 162800yen).
Nikon literally has no support , no service, no experts at their customer relation office.
It is obvious they have an in-house employees training manual or system to train them to make almost all warranty cases actually user faults or an user caused malfunction or issue to make sure to charge a big amount of money from every under warranty repair case.
They just want to sell the expensive but extremely fragile S lenses and Z cameras and once these go wrong , they would charge a lot for repair or they won't provide any proper under-warranty case support.. I was shocked to experience how much worse the Nikon service support has become over the last few years, it was the best in the business before the D600 issue, but now it is the very worst in this regard.
Every time some Nikon product goes wrong they try to make it OUR fault/ our problem, we broke it and so we must pay for the repair service or do not get it fixed.
I know lenses and cameras quite well and I can tell them exactly what were causing this issue or that, and try to make them do all free for me , but most of times they just do not do anything unless I accept to pay a few hundreds dollars or more with my credit card.
They tried to charge 45000 yen for my Z50mm f1.8S AF motor. I did not break it it broke itself as it exposed to minus 17c cold mountain air. And this lens was just 2 months old.
Now I have to admit I much prefer Sony support team, they are kinder and more professional, at least for those products bought via Sony Stores or Sony authorized stores. They provide a free pick up truck or van and send it to our house for free, and send it to Sony service center in Kanagawa and send it back to us in just a few days and in case of GMs it is all free..... again, it is really excellent quality service.
I am seriously impressed how good and professional Sony support team has become (at least in Japan and Asia) these days. They seem to be much better than Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic and Ricoh in service and customer support. These people are very helpful and very knowledgeable, know their lenses very well. Nikon guys, on the other hand, know nothing about their own lenses.
Maybe Sony is the very best in service and support quality, even Leica and Zeiss cannot match the level of Sony service and support here .
I think it is a huge part of reason many pros and part time professional shooters like myself(I have my real job but sometimes do part time event works) here support Sony or/ and Canon......they have the best support network in the business..
Their support network is much more professional and efficient, their customer relation team is better (actually listening to us users) , and they honor the warranty that Nikon refuses to do.
But , in any case, when it is possible it is safer to use Loxia or Voigtlander primes in a really cold harsh shooting environment especially near the Okhotsk sea...
Any way here's how my Nikon and Sony lenses broke or died in Hokkaido:
My Nikon Z7 died in Biei on Feb 6th, my Nikon Z6 and Z50mm f1.8S died in Kagura area of Asahikawa city in the same day Feb 6th. Then in Wakkanai(on the very next day) my Nikon Z35mm f1.8 and the kit zoom died. The Nikon kit zoom is excellent optically when you get a decent copy of it, but I have already had a big concern about its very poor build quality.
It is unnecessarily a complex design, and the collapsible lens design makes it extremely fragile and weak to any minor shock. When I talked about this issue in last October,an army of Nikon fanboys criticized me as a Sony fanboy and dishonest, etc. But it is a fact.
My Sony FE24-70mm f2.8GM died in Iwamizawa on Feb 4th......and I had to send it to Sapporo Sony store to fix it.
My FE16-35mm f2.8GM died in Wakkanai port area in the late night Feb 7th.
My FE24mm f1.4GM died in Asahikawa on Feb 10th.....
My FE24-70mm f2.8GM died in Iwamizawa while I was documenting a huge snow storm that hit on that area. I was shooting a short video with my A7R3 and FE24-70mm f2.8GM. Initially, it worked very well, but as the temp there got down to under minus 12c level, the aperture and AF stopped working. I thought about my camera got some issue, and I changed my camera. Still the lens did not work. So I knew my lens died there..
After that I used the Nikon Z7 and Z35mm f1.8S lens for video, these worked well for about ten minutes , then my Z7 started to act odd, never focused on anything close and suddenly stopped working. I changed my lens but my Z7 still did not work. At this point, I knew my Z7 died........
So I changed my camera to my A7R2 with FE16-35mm f2.8GM and FE24-105mmf4G and finished filming there. After that, I shot a few station and famous Iwamizawa ware house images there with my FE16-35mm f2.8GM on my A7R2.
Then I shot a few long exposure images of the old town Iwamizawa with the Sony combo.
After that, I quickly walked back to my hotel and tested my dead lenses and camera carefully. But they never worked again.
The FE24-70mm f2.8GM seemed to have developed some focus issue and thus F number on the camera always stayed at F0 while it was on my A7R3 or R2. I dried the lens over night and cleaned the contacts and remounted it on my A7R3 and A7R2 to see if it would work again. But it would not. So I knew it really died in early morning of Feb 5th.
My Nikon Z7 did not turn on ever again, but I just put out the battery and dried it out too in case it would work again. My Z7 never responded, and at this point I knew it really died.
Then I tried to test the Z35mm f1.8S on my Z6 to see if it'd work and it worked.
So I called Sony Sapporo in the next morning and they asked me to send it in for proper service with my insurance number(I bought it with Sony damage protection insurance plan). So I sent it to Sapporo Sony Store from JR Iwamizawa station. I did the same for the Nikon kit too, but they asked me to send these to Tokyo area (Chiba). And I had to pay the shipping fee.
So after that, I only had a couple of Nikon Z6 cameras with three Nikon lenses (the Z24-70mm f4S, the 50mm f1.8S and the 35mm f1.8S) and three Sony cameras (1 A7R3 and 2 A7R2) with the Batis 135mmf2.8 APO(which I did not use much there, it was just a bit too long), the Batis 85mm f1.8, the FE24mm f1.4GM, the FE16-35mm f2.8GM, Loxia 50mm f2.
The next lens and camera combo to die in this lens killing very strange trip was my Nikon Z6 and Z50mm f1.8S kit, they died in Kagura area of Asahikawa city(one of the coldest places in Hokkaido).
This was shocking since I was a big fan of this Nikon 50mm f1.8S lens, I truly believed it may be the sharpest 50mm AF prime ever made, it was sharper than my FE50mm f1.4ZA and almost as good as my Batis 40mm f2CF and a bit better than the FE55mm f1.8ZA in terms of sheer resolution and I was very impressed with it ,especially considering its very very modest price. It is a absolute bargain lens in my book. So I was really shocked and down when I lost it.
The next lens to die in Hokkaido this trip was my Sony FE16-35mm f2.8GM.
It died in Wakkanai, which is the northernmost city of Japan and I think the cold salt containing air and strong wind from the port killed it. But last year it had no issue and handled this kind of shootings very well. But to be honest it was not Sony's fault, I think I broke it or I used it in an wrong place.
But it was a huge loss since FE16-35mm f2.8GM was by far the most important lens for this project (my workhorse kind of lens). I really needed the zoom, nothing other than a good 16-35mm zoom would be able to film the storm documentary there. Neither my 24-105mm f4G zoom, nor my Loxia 50, nor my Batis 85 prime were wide enough for most of scenes I planned to film in Wakkanai port area.
Even though I thought it was my fault , I still had to ask this question: is Sony's weather sealing effective for only one year or less? And is that of the Nikon Z even worse?
Anyway, another serious lens-destroying issue there was unavoidable condensation due to too warm trains, in side of buildings and too cold outside air. The temp gap between inside of buildings and outside really damaged the lenses.
I tried to cover all my cameras and lenses with Ziplock bag and protect it and this year I even used more expensive lens cover that I bought from Yodobashi Fukuoka.
Still some of my lenses got some condensation from time to time. But carefully dismounting these from my camera and drying them carefully outside of a warm heated room helped these lenses most of times. And to my surprise, none of my Sony A 7X bodies died in this trip. I guess the second and the third generation A7X are actually quite tough.
But the FE16-35mm f2.8GM and FE24-70mm f2.8GM died. And more shockingly all my Nikon lenses and cameras I brought for field testing in Hokkaido died.......the Z7, the Z6 , the Z24-70mm f4S , the Z35mm f1.8S and the Z50mm f1.8S.
So I called Sony Sapporo again and talked about it and they asked me to send my FE16-35mm f2.8GM in.
So I sent it to Sapporo Sony in the very next morning . In afternoon of the same day , they called me to tell me that they'd need to send my lenses to Tokyo Sony main service station and as they fix them, they would send them back to my house in Fukuoka. Excellent service.
I also sent my Nikon Z6 and Z50mm f1.8 S to Sapporo and then they told me they need to send it to Tochigi prefecture, and then examine them and send the details to my email address and shipping fee automatically deducted from my credit card.
What a difference?
I thanked it at the time. But later, I would know how much they wanted for just a simple AF motor swap case. And they tried to charge 112000 yen for a replacement sensor for my Z6. It is simply too much since it was an under warranty case(my Z6 was just a few weeks old at the time).
In the same day as my FE16-35mm f2.8GM and Nikon Z6 died my Z24-70mm f4S also died.
I was really really shocked to see how bad Nikon service and support became and also how terribly weak Nikon mirrorless bodies and lenses seemed to be. I did not think their D-SLRs were as weak.......
At this point, I had only one lens for my Nikon kit: the Z35mm f1.8S and it was the least used Nikon lens in my bag. I am not a 35mm person.....I much prefer 28 or 40mm.
And this meant , from this point I was not covered my wide angle needs with any of my Sony or Nikon kit, at least until I get back to Asahikawa city area to buy a FE16-35mm f4ZA or a Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 as a temporal wide angle solution on Feb, 10th.
The next lens in my bag at the time to die was the FE24mm f1.4GM. It was a really good lens optically,and luckily I could get my second copy just a day before leaving my house to Hokkaido in the evening of Feb 2nd. So I had to bring it up to the north to see how it would handle the cold air and how it'd render snow covered white land.
It was an excellent lens but it seemed like as fragile as many of my other Sony or Nikon lenses........died in a short lasting snow storm in Asahikawa airport area.
It died in Asahikawa area , but not in the city area of Asahikawa, it was a place called Nishi-Kagura, which is located between Asahikawa city are and Asahikawa airport. I think it was about 5 degrees colder than the city area , so it was like minus 18C at the time. Feb 10th was the second coldest day in this trip.
It happened very suddenly, there was no way to avoid it, or even guess it was coming.
While I was shooting behind the JR station there in Nishi-kagura , it suddenly froze up and never responded any more, so I changed my lens to my Loxia 25mm f2.4 , then it worked fine again. After that I had to shoot everything in Kagura area with my FE16-35mm f4ZA, which I bought at Asahikawa Aeon mall to replace my dead FE16-35mm f2.8GM. Some videos and extreme detail required images I shot with my Loxia 25mm f2.4.
So at this point I have collected total 2 dead cameras (Z7 and Z6) and 5 dead lenses(FE16-35mm f2.8GM, FE24-70mm f2.8GM, Z24-70mmf4S, Z50mm f1.8S, FE24mm f1.4GM)......it was a huge loss and I had to buy a couple of lenses in Asahikawa to continue my trip there. So real loss was even bigger.
It was a very costly and tough trip this time , I was very busy and needed to spend much more extra money on these things I did not expect to buy, wouldn't have had to buy if my lenses hadn't gone really wrong. So I was really furious about it but Sony at least provided me excellent support and service. All my lenses except the FE24mm f1.4GM were repaired and sent back to me in 5 days. And all of these came back to me like brand new lenses. I guess Sony changed a bit worn parts of these lenses and even repainted some parts for me.
In contrast, Nikon support and service was really lousy, terribly slow, they did not even send my lenses and cameras to Tokyo service station, they Nikon Sapporo(I guess) still hold them without doing anything.
This speed and quality difference in service between the two major FF players was glaring, shocking and this could be the very reason why no normal users without Nikon legacy support any of their products now.
IMHO, Nikon's restructuring of the aged conservative corporation changed the company too much in a very negative way. They decided to fire many people in their service and support department and that has made the quality of their support terribly bad....
By contrast Sony has spent a lot of money to improve their support and service network and their service and support team seems to be supported by their strong insurance business unit(which is the biggest business unit of Sony).
So now, they seem to have the best support and service team in this business. I think it is a huge plus for Sony and a huge minus for Nikon as it may be the last bastion of Nikon..
Nikon seems to be too shortsighted to see the true importance of providing quality service and after sells support........the members of their support team seem to be all incompetent and they do not know how to handle normal under warranty cases properly.
Oh also Nikon always ignores any serious request for FW update, they really rarely provides any serious FW update anything more than just a simple bug fix.
It is extremely annoying.
Maybe a subjective topic like ergo , build and feeling of a body is the last bastion for the Nikon diehards when it comes to Sony vs Nikon mirrorless discussion.
