Nikon D600

In the waiting room

Throwing caution to the wind I dropped my Nikon D600 into Harvey Norman Penrith for the last time. Surprisingly the issue was dealt with promptly and with a minimum of fuss. I took some paperwork (Previous job cards from Nikon Sydney, the most recent reference file and a copy of a 40 + page Class Action Lawsuit) with me this time which I think gave the guys who I spoke to (Peter and Joe) a better view of the bigger picture. I put my preferred options on the table and now simply have to wait for the outcome. Hopefully I won’t have to follow through with the next step.

Nikon-d600

image courtesy of www.nphotomag.com

Oil and Dust return to haunt Nikon D600

After 3 services (sensor clean) and 3 shutter replacements I had every good reason to believe the problem had gone. Not so……

The shots referenced here were taken in the last few days. I only got to see them last night after returning from 3 days away. It’s disheartening to say the least. In all instances UV filter and lens had been cleaned prior to shooting.

The shots below were references for me to see how the UV filter was affecting the colour balance. I’ve multiplied the layers in Photoshop to increase the visibility of the finer oil marks on the sensor.

Filter On

Filter on

Filter Off

Filter_off2

Subsequent shot samples showing further accumulation of marks.

oil3

The shot below has been processed to increase the visibility of some marks.

oil4

 

This one (below) from today (18th April) after cleaning lens, filter and running an in camera sensor clean.

Clearly this is a dust and  oil issue.

oil6

Can’t get to Nikon until next week (after Easter). I’ll see how good the promise by Nikon is to replace faulty D600 cameras.

I guess that in the entire time I’ve had the D600 (just over a year) I’ve only had a few months of trouble free shooting. I can see why China banned the sale of this camera. Luckily I had my Canon G1X on hand, so whilst the shots on the Nikon D600 are useless I was able to salvage something from the time away.

As for the retailer I purchased the camera from (Harvey Norman @ Penrith), I can’t even see the point in trying to get any result from them: the 3 year replacement warranty to date hasn’t been worth the paper its written on.

D600 officially retired today.

 

Nikon issue official D600 statement

After China banned the sale of Nikon D600’s Nikon released the following statement on the 28th of March 2014

“With regard to the issue with which multiple granular dust spots are reflected in images captured with the D600 digital SLR camera, Nikon sincerely apologizes for any concern and inconvenience suffered by D600 users, retailers, and all concerned.

Because Nikon takes this matter very seriously, we will continue to offer users of the D600 a special service with which cameras are inspected, cleaned, and if necessary, shutter and related parts are replaced free of charge, even after the product warranty has expired. However, if a number of multiple granular dust spots are still noticeable in images captured with a D600 upon which the above service has been performed several times, Nikon will replace it with a new D600 or an equivalent model.”

Read the full stories here and here

Nikon D600 back in the fight… but flying blind.

No replacement, but back in my hands once again with a next generation CM5 shutter unit under the bonnet and a clean slate on the sensor. Nikon, now it seems, have an effective fix for the dust and oil blues afflicting the early release D600’s.

However, after booting up I discovered that the info data is barely visible in the viewfinder and despite adjusting the diopter through it’s full range I’m able to do little more than bring up a pale blurry green line of what should be EV, ISO, Shutter and Aperture info. It was fine before I took it in. Currently the only way I can access camera info etc is through live view. Oh well at least I know my way to the service department at Rhodes like the back of my hand and by the time I got there the data reading ( EV, ISO, Shutter, Aperture etc) in the viewfinder was completely dead.

Light at the end of the tunnel | Nikon D600

Update on current status.

I dropped my D600 into Nikon Sydney today to get it checked out for the third time after a new round of contamination appeared on the sensor. I had pretty much given up on Harvey Norman doing the right thing in terms of replacing the camera or camera body point blank or if not in a way that required me turning myself into a human pretzel to meet the requirements and; I’m kinda tired of rolling that story out Ad nauseam. However, today the clouds rolled back, and it looks like there is a good possibility that Nikon Sydney will replace the camera body. I take the quality of service at Nikon Sydney as a given but this extra step took me by surprise and certainly cemented my belief that Nikon Sydney take the integrity of their customer service seriously.

If the worst of the waiting is over, then I’m a mightily relieved man and I can get back to the business of doing the work that the D600 was designed to do.

Upon reflection, it’s been a valuable learning experience. I realized that whilst my first post was a little acerbic and I was responding to a disagreeable sense of disappointment it’s been worth it to hold on and not abandon ship. My first shots with the D600 proved to me first up that it’s is a worthy contender. However further testing did two things, it opened me up to the full capability of the camera and it revealed my particular D600’s only flaw.

So now it’s just wait and see how NIkon call the next shot. I’ve grown to have a deep sense of appreciation for the D600’s capability and I’ll be more that happy to have a replacement back in my hands sooner than later.

Nikon D600 in the soup again | A recurring nightmare on oil street.

After 5-6 years of problem free shooting; firstly with a Nikon D40 and then a Canon 50D, I’m at a loss to explain the rash of sensor related issues I’ve been experiencing for the last 6 months with my Nikon D600. No dust problem at all with the Nikon D40, a little dust (that required only a few rounds of cleaning) with my Canon 50D (and that was due to me regularly rotating zone plates, pinhole caps and Diana lenses) and certainly no issue with oil on the sensor with either camera. But with the D600 only the first 20-30 or so shots were usable. After the last clean and inspection with Nikon in Sydney I got a handful of usable shots (20th June) but nothing since that hasn’t required a big overhaul in Photoshop.

Read the original post.

I picked the D600 up from Nikon’s new service center over at Rhodes on 20/6/13. The guy on the service desk said the repair team mentioned cleaning dust from the sensor and from the mirror box (my request). However they were apparently of the opinion that the dust on the sensor was environmental. Now…. unless there is a trans-dimensional vacuum inside the camera body that specifically targets and sucks in dust through some huge gap in the body, there is no way that dust from the environment could enter the camera. The camera is kept in a sealed case when not in use, I don’t shoot at construction sites in India and the lens has not been off the camera since I picked it up. According to Nikon the D600 has the same degree of effective weather-sealing as the D800. So I don’t buy the environmental dust story from the repair team. One of the weird parts of the story (the other is currently withheld from publication) is that when I took the camera in for the second time (after the first repair) the technician there said that only dust spots were visible via the software connected to the camera that displayed the sensor surface on a monitor. I was curious, since the reference images I have by the bucket load clearly indicated that the sensor had a healthy covering of some other translucent substance. In relation to the agreed dust marks I mentioned that I suspected that the mirror box might require cleaning, since this had been a recurring theme appearing across a number of Forums as a suspected source for internal dust. I asked if they wouldn’t mind checking that out and cleaning it. I didn’t mention all the other marks on that visit but just decided to lay low and see what the prognosis was. Since they couldn’t detect oil on the sensor I doubted that the people at DigiCam would be able to either. So I kept my cards and asked them to clean it and I would wait and see if anything else developed after I picked it up.

Now to backtrack, the reason I had taken it in to Nikon for the second time was that I had initiated a claim against the warranty with Harvey Norman and the people at the claims dept wanted me to ship the camera off to DigiCam in Adelaide to have it inspected / and or repaired prior to any further action being recommended. I thought that this was a little suspect and odd, since the camera had been sold to me in the first instance with a faulty component which Nikon had replaced/repaired despite prior remonstrations from the people at Harvey Norman in Penrith that the problem with the camera was either in my imagination or due to my usage and that if such an issue actually existed; Nikon would have issued a recall and they hadn’t so… (this is documented in earlier posts). I also wanted a second opinion and statement ready to go in case the guys at the other end (DigiCam) fudged the findings or the camera went missing in transit. By the way DigiCam ‘s preferred courier TOLL PRIORITY only provide minimal insurance to the value of $500 as an optional buy in.

After I got the call to say the camera was ready I returned to Nikon with a reference image loaded on my laptop and a small case to carry the camera body (the rest of the camera was packed and ready to go to Adelaide if necessary). There was no one at the service desk so I booted up the laptop and had it ready to go. When the service guy came back I mentioned that I had something I wanted him to look at in relation to marks on a particular image. I said that I suspected that the larger dark marks were dust and then asked him to look at a whole swag of other marks that I thought were oil. He agreed there was something worth checking out. The camera was retrieved and further checks were done on the sensor to ensure that the sensor was clear of debris. He asked for a copy of the reference file and passed that on to their tech people. I took the camera home and put the original 24-85mm lens back on and took some test shots that returned zero contamination.

I thought we were now back on the road to a peaceful co-existence. However……..visible evidence of sensor contamination began to surface relatively quickly and once it appeared it was literally a matter of less than 100 shots before the sensor had a healthy covering of either oil and or dust.

Since nothing had changed in terms of the cameras exposure to the environment it’s impossible to attribute this increase to external causes. The contamination, whatever it is, is internally generated.

The image below was one of the first where I detected some contamination of the sensor.

oil3

This following image demonstrates an increase in sensor contamination. Only about 10 shots separate these images.

oil4_ul

The image below again demonstrates a significant increase in contamination of the sensor. The UV filter had been cleaned prior to this shot. Only about 20 frames separate these two images. I’ve used a number of contrast based processes to push the visibility of the marks.

oil6_ul

The reference image below (taken a day after the image above) demonstrates a moderate increase in contamination of the sensor.

I took these just shooting for some open sky so that whatever was on the sensor would be easier to ID on the file.

oil 8_ul

This shot below was taken today (1-7-13) after cleaning the UV filter (front and back), cleaning the lens (front and back) and running multiple sensor cleans to remove dust if any was present. As you can see not much has changed, there are some new marks (due to either being able to push better contrast or an increase in contamination) and the previous still remain, despite some on the upper right side loosing visibility due to lack of adequate contrast. Some may even argue that on closer examination it’s obvious that there are more that I haven’t identified.

oil 9

Frustrating? Sure is…….(to the tune of ‘Trust British Paints’)

…and it’s back to Nikon tomorrow for Round 3.

Nikon D600 | The Last Post?

Somewhere between 1000 and 1066 shutter activations a mild form of chaos appears to have broken loose inside the D600 body and the sensor now has a healthy covering of oil. Nikon replaced the shutter mechanism and a seal under warranty in a camera that Harvey Norman at Penrith refused to acknowledge had a problem. It’s worrying on a number of fronts. The first being that there seems to be some issue with the quality of the components in the shutter mechanism. I understand the issue is not common to all D600’s. it appears to affect about 1 in 4 cameras (based on reader comment). The second is that the retailer from whom I purchased the camera seemed to be reluctant to acknowledge that there was a production or component issue that affected some but not all D600’s, despite cameras going in for servicing and part replacement under warranty.

The reference images clearly show a big increase in oil on the sensor between 1012 and 1066 actuation’s. The 50mm f1.8 lens has not been off the camera since I collected it from the service center at Nikon Sydney. Nikon have acknowledged the fault and repaired it; however, the problem is back and I don’t want to spend the rest of my natural life putting this camera in for repair.

I’ve added an adjusted image image below the original after looking at the results over at Kyle Clements blog. He was still getting oil after 5000 shutter activations.

I’ll be happy if Harvey Norman honour their 3 Year Replacement Warranty?

sensor check @ 1000a

Image (5014 x 3346) shot at 1066 shutter actuation mark.

sensor check levels2@ 1000

Levels and curves adjusted image. More marks are visible (circled in yellow)