Nikon D610 vs D600

[willie_901]

I owned a D300 that occasionally splashed oil droplets on the sensor.

The issue is oil. The shutter spits oil droplets onto a corner of the sensor. The oil dispersion is not random. This is a defect.

Then the oils attracts dust. The dust sticks to the oil. Without regular wet cleaning the oil slowly evaporates and the dust/oil-residue spot becomes hardened.

You can not remove oil with a blower and after the dust sticks to the oil you can't remove the oil-residue/dust spot with a blower.

About 95% of the oil spots can be quickly removed without consequence by cloning. Every once and a while removing the oil in post takes time. This is highly dependent on the subject. The smaller the aperture, the more you see the problem.

In bodies where the oil splattering is constant, eventually so much oil and dust accumulates simple spot cloning becomes impractical. This means the sensor has to be wet cleaned on a regular schedule.

 

[willie_901]

A refurb D600 might be a good deal. That is assuming refurb means they cleaned up the "oil spill".

Yes, if you can confirm the shutter mechanism was swapped out with a newer style mechanism. Apparently Nikon has remedied the problem on some cameras that were returned for warranty repair.

 

[ray*j*gun]

So, is there any serial number, or date of mfg that would ensure the problem is corrected?

 

[Tijmendal]

Just get a D700/D3 for digital and an F5 for film. Job done and no more gas.

That's what I was gonna say. Just get a D700 if you want FF...

 

[willie_901]

So, is there any serial number, or date of mfg that would ensure the problem is corrected?

Since Nikon is perfectly silent on the D600 shutter issue, there is no way of correlating serial number or date to this problem.

 

[Murchu]

So, is there any serial number, or date of mfg that would ensure the problem is corrected?

Thom Hogan reckons you'd need to use it a bit to know, suggesting if you've less than 5000 exposures with it, that you stick it in interval shooting mode, and run off at least 5000 exposures, then examining your images to see if they exhibit any signs of the issue. Obviously this is really only useful for present D600 owners, as opposed to potential buyers who may want to check for the issue.

If plumping for a D600, I would suggest maybe trying to get a late serial number model, if the serial number ranges are out there. Not sure if this would be any guarantee, but at least if your camera has the issue, it can be sent back to Nikon under warranty who will sort it, but obviously thats a pain.

By the way, love the Fischer avatar 🙂