My I AM | CUSTOMER CARE experience

It is a gloomy afternoon in Dubai, not the typical weather that you’ll see the whole year. Dark clouds hover over the whole city that seems to signify that it’s going to rain. Me and my buddy are prepared to go to the free Nikon Sensor cleaning program at Za’abeel Park diminishing the doubts that the rain might fall anytime. We access at the gate 1 of the park as it was the nearest gate from the station beside it, from there we roam around to look for the ICBC (International Characters and Brands Carnival) event.

The event was held on the grassy grounds of the park which was like the sunken garden of University of the Philippines in my country. The bright yellow and black booth of Nikon is outstanding among other exhibitors on the area. As we approach their booth we can see people specially families swarming the place due to their free photo booth service. Children and adults lined up to take turns and putting on the props provided by the Nikon staff and giving their best smiles as the assigned photographer snaps them.

The booth itself is very vibrant from the heart shape collage photos on their walls along with the famous slogan I AM | NIKON. There are also display gallery of Nikon digital cameras “The Coolpix” that varies in different models and colors next to it are the Nikon J1 models attached with series of interchangeable micro-four third lenses. Their main hype is the basic DSLR models which are the D3200 and D5200 that now goes in different marvelous shades.

Nikon representatives with their Grandstore team welcome us with a smile. Some of the faces are already familiar to us especially the one who will clean our toys, a fellow Filipino that we only see during GPP (Gulf Photo Plus) event every march. A deposit form was handed over to us to fill up and if you guys are wondering that in my previous post I said that I have a DX body and how come I was able to avail the cleaning? Honestly!  It was very generous of Nikon MEA that they serviced my DSLR as my primary objective only is to accompany a friend and check out the event itself.

Wait! Let’s skip the hello part as there is still plenty to say rather than the free service that they are giving. As we deposited our loving toys to have their pampering one of Nikon MEA representative SURPRISED us by lending a D4 with an 85mm f1.4 G lens, yes you read it right a D4. The flagship beast of the Nikon DSLR is in our grasp for a few minutes and we never let the opportunity pass by take sample photo from it. So we took some snaps of kids who are within the booth as our subject and exploiting the prowess of the 85mm to show us what every photographer is looking with an f1.4! Bokeh!!! Below are some of the shots we have taken.

I was very impressed by the combination of the D4 and 85mm! I was thinking during that time, what if I can still use the D800 and D600 for comparison? So, I asked Nikon MEA representative if they have D600 and D800, but unfortunately they didn’t have it at that moment.  We were just lucky somehow, as we had Mr. Shahid Hashmi standing next to us—as he brought his complete arsenal of photo gears! He had with him his D800E, and he asked for the 85mm to be tested as well. So, we also grabbed the opportunity to take a shot out of D800E J

Below is the photo taken with the D800E:

It was a really a fun and fulfilling experience for us. Who wouldn’t think so? We got our camera sensors cleaned AND on top of that, we were able to test two of the best cameras out in the market now—the D4 and D800E. How cool was that? 

For comparison purposes, I am attaching this 100% crop image from the 2 cameras tested. It’s up to you to judge what’s the difference--especially to those who are “pixel peepers”, who likes big megapixel!

D4 100% crop

D800 100% crop

Thank you again Nikon Middle East for these wonderful opportunities, especially to Mr. Muhammad Quraishi and Mr. Cesar “Rocky” Parroco. Also to Grandstore Team, as well as to Mr. Shahid Hashmi for lending us his personal photo gears for testing.

Mr. Muhammad Quraishi

Photo credits to Mr. Elmer Magallanes Jr.

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Me,

                                                                

 The Hot Shoe Anthologist