Although the magnitude of this announcement is yet to be determined, Nikon has issued a “Technical Service Advisory” for all Nikon D600 DSLR camera affected by the dust particles on the sensor. This service, deemed a customer-service measure by Nikon (not to be confused with recall, I assume) states that, “Nikon is making available to all owners of D600 cameras (even if Nikon’s product warranty has expired) this customer-service measure, which includes the inspection, cleaning and replacement of the shutter assembly and related parts of your camera, FREE OF CHARGE as well as the cost of shipping D600 cameras to Nikon and their return to customers.”
The problem with dust (or oil or particles or gunk or whatever-you-want-to-call-it) accumulation started early. Soon after, reports from D600 users across the world began to pour in. Quickly, the numerous counts of particle accumulation were too hard to ignore. Nikon then announced the D610. It was basically the D600 with a new shutter mechanism (which supposedly lead to a faster FPS rate), a firmware update, quiet shooting mode, and, most importantly, a pretty clean sensor. Outrage ensued against Nikon for creating a new camera without acknowledging the faults of the D600 model. We published a Dear Editor article which blatantly asked Nikon to listen to their consumers and fix the problem. Nikon’s public response to its customers was to contact the company to see if the camera qualifies for a repair.
Soon after that, I sent in my own personal D600 (still under warranty at the time) to Nikon’s service center. I published this article about my experience which was very positive. However, my experience was not always the norm and many D600 customers had a less than ideal experience with Nikon.
Nikon was recently hit with a class action complaint. I’m slightly surprised it took a lawyer this long to get one going. I guess these things take time. The lawsuit accuses Nikon of a breach of extended warranty, a breach of implied warranty, and 7 other complaints.
Here’s my biggest issue, though. I had my D600 serviced on December 9, 2013 (about 10 weeks ago). Immediately after getting the camera back and firing off some test shots for reference on December 13, 2013, it still looked pretty good. But I just did another check on it the other day and the sensor is filled with spots again. The worst part of this is I hardly used it over those 10 weeks. So what the heck is going on? How in the world are there spots on a camera that has seen only 5,000 shutter clicks since it was serviced in December? I know this is problematic of all mirrored cameras, but darn it. I am pretty tired of a filthy sensor.
Before sending the D600 in for service.
After sending the D600 in for service.
10 weeks after sending in the D600 for service (about 5,000 shots later). Is it possible that it’s worse than the first time?
Two shots later with a blue background. Less visable spots, but the top left corner is still covered.
I am really overwhelmed. The spots are back and they are so bad. And the bigger issue is these spots look like splatters. The whole upper left side is filled again with splatter spots! What? The shutter mechanism was replaced. That was supposed to fix the problem of the splattered debris. Please weigh in on our forums if you have had your D600 serviced and ended up having the spots return.