An engineer friend of mine asked, "Why does Nikon use grease to lubricate?"

I don't think I put too much confidence into an analysis of a camera by the Army Corps of Engineers, nor by some guy driving a train.

Nobody here knows the details of the oil splatter in the D800 and D600. We don't know if it is really oil, silicone lubricant, or something else. We don't know where it is coming from, nor what engineering decisions resulted in the current design.

One thing we do know is that the estimated shutter life went from 150K on the D700 to 200K on the D800. If the cost of that increase is oil splatter for the first 2K shot, it might be well worth it.

Oh, and my D700 did have oil splatter in its early life.

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Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html