Grumble grumble grumble

I'm in a foul mood. It turns out there was a very good reason why my camera came back so quickly. It didn't get fixed.

I tried out the flash on the camera at work today and nothing. Not even a glimmer of light emited from the flash (except when we pushed the Test button).

So I called Nikon to see what was what. After going through an automated voice system, I was plunked to a helpful young man who, despite having to "install software" (ya, right) to look up what they did to my camera, was patient and friendly. He told me that all Nikon did was re-flash the firmware and clean the sensor. He also told me that the problem as reported to Nikon was "pop-up flash doesn't work". I told him that wasn't the case, that the pop-up flash worked fine except to trigger another flash. He didn't say much to that.

He had me diagnose the camera and flash on the phone with him.

"First reset the flash by pressing this key combination. Then reset the camera by pressing the two buttons with a green dot. Then reset the menu. Then change the camera to Commander mode. Then put the flash about a meter away and press the shutter button."

I did all that before I sent it in and I told him so, but I followed what he told me again. Sure enough, just like before, the flash went off the first time, but not the second, third, forth, or fifth. He had me move the camera closer to the flash. He then told me to try a different flash. When I told him that I already did, he said to send it in again.

So I did. I dropped it off at Black's tonight. And now I get to play the waiting game again. Only this time I'm going to call Nikon every day to try and catch the camera while it's there and make sure that they know what the problem is. I'm not convinced that Black's is relaying the information properly to Nikon.

And the kicker is that Black's wants me to pay for shipping for the camera even though I had bought the extended warranty which explicitly says that all shipping and insurance changes are covered. The main office has changed their policy apparently. The lady at the front was nice and just waived the charges without a fuss

OK, my rant is over. I feel better now. And hey - who knows I may be getting that D300 after all (probably not, but one can dream). I double checked my extended warranty and it says:

If your camera need repairs on three separate occasions under the terms and life of your warranty, we will replace your camera with a new or similar model at our discretion.

Two down, one to go I guess.