So I bought this Nikon P7800 because I need something other than my DSLR’s t take pictures of my kids with. It’s been fun to shoot with and the optional wireless adapter is only abut $40. I love the manual controls and the electronic viewfinder was the selling point for me. When I got home and plugged in the memory card to my computer is when the honeymoon ended.
The P7800 writes it’s RAW files in the .nrw file format. Currently, for some reason, and maybe because I haven’t googled it enough yet, Mac Preview can’t see the file format, nor Lightroom, or Photoshop. I am assuming because it’s such a new camera that the version of this file is too new. I’m assuming that based on nothing. I wanted to get confirmation on this and maybe a workaround so I called Nikon Support and thus began my divorce with Nikon.
To the first representative I spoke to I said I was having problems with my “nrw” files. She repeated “nrw” incorrectly eight times. To that she replied that I may have gotten a bad CD that came with my camera. I said, “What?” How does having a bad CD equate to file format. What? I was very disheartened that she may have skipped a step or two in her call center script and just went for her final attempt. For the next 10 minutes I tried explaining some more to no avail. I felt like I was talking about getting an oil change and the representative kept trying to talk to me about my mortgage. Doesn’t make sense? Yeah, now you understand 2% of what I was feeling. “What version of the software did you download?” She asked me. I said, “2.0.2.”
“Oh then you have the wrong software. It’s supposed to be 8.2.”
“You mean, 2.8.2?” I said.
“No, just 8.2, it’s newer.”
It seems that, not saying Nikon has everything to do with this other than the purchaser of this outsourced call center, it doesn’t matter what your issue is if their ViewNX2 reads the file from the camera then it’s not their problem. My second representative that I called nicely explained to me just that. Not any less frustrating but I appreciated the simple and direct explanation.
I wanted my first called escalated so I asked for a supervisor which I realized was a bad idea. My wife is a director of a call center and “supervisor” can mean the rep that sits next to you. I spoke to Lisa, not her real name to protect her identity. I told her my disappointment in my first call and my appreciation of my first. She said, “What do you want me to do?” Silence for 20 seconds. I didn’t know what to say other than, “Well, I guess you don’t take these kind of calls.” The short of it was the she said the rep was new and that she was in the point and shoot department which didn’t handle RAW files but some point and shoots are handling them now so if you need to call about RAW files you should choose the DSLR option. She then said that the rep gave the only answer she could give when it came to “files” which, of course, verified my assumption of a script. These representatives aren’t product specialist or help desk reps that will do some basic troubleshooting. It’s a call center with stats that they need to keep down like call time, call hold, call numbers. Unfortunately that kind of business just lost my business.
