D600 been out for a while, and no obvious flaws yet!

I am very impressed with the D600 so far. At least on paper, and in user forums. I did not buy it yet, for I am a Canon user at the moment (5D 2). But it's only a matter of time before I do.

What surprises me the most is the deafening silence about any kind of major flaw with the D600. Everybody seems happy with the AF, the image quality, and besides the 1/4000s max shutter, lack of AF button, and lack of aperture control in Live View video mode, I haven't read anything negative.

I am used to the Canon forum, and these guys are ripping each other apart, defending the 5D3 or claiming that the D600 is superior. Nobody seems to have a problem with the 5D 3 either, except for its outrageous price of course! But there really is a fight between D600 and 5D 3. Nobody is comparing the D600 to the 6D over there.

I also wanted to say that the Nikon forum is a lot more chill than the Canon one (except for that enraged 4x5 Guy). I guess it's easier to be chill when your camera maker doesn't enrage you with every new product announcement!

Anyways, just wanted to share my amazement about how perfect a camera the D600 is turning out to be! Good job Nikon! Can't wait to join your ranks!

Only real negative I've heard was some having dust(oil?) spots on the sensor out of the box. Though that isn't unique, at the launch of the D3s I saw a few posts regarding that. I am continuing to watch for the next few months before I get one. It should fit nicely between the D800 (36m) and D700 (12m).
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http://www.pbase.com/stilllearning/inbox

True. That's actually a bummer. I used to have that problem with my old Canon 20D, and from that era, learned how to clean a sensor myself. But it's something that I really don't want to get into again.

There is some griping too about the focus points being in the center of the glass and not much to the edge. Probably as a result of Nikon ripping off the D7000 footprint for this camera.
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Jay

I did have one of the AF indicators not come on. Seemed to be an isolated lemon and not a flaw, unless other people have just not tested all of them

Gosman said:

There is some griping too about the focus points being in the center of the glass and not much to the edge. Probably as a result of Nikon ripping off the D7000 footprint for this camera.

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Or ridiculous expectations from those who have never used a full frame camera before. Every FX camera has all of the focus points clustered in the center, both Nikon's and Canon's. Scroll down to the bottom of this page for an AF point coverage comparison (Canon only but very similar to Nikon): http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Photography-Tips/Canon-EOS-DSLR-Autofocus-Explained.aspx

And it's funny, because a few days ago I thought about starting a thread asking if there were any major problems with the D600 that needed a firmware update to fix. It didn't seem like there has been any big issues to take notice of. Thankfully!

One thing that bugs me a little is the AF points are all clustered in the middle. I'd like to see them spread out more.

Well the reason could be that in DX mode you also could have all the 39 focuspoints this way.

But it could be a problem especially in studio when the cam is on a tripod and I like to use Af trust that more than my eyes.

You can use Liveview and contrast detect AF on the whole surface although but that is somewhat slower...

It would be nice to have more AF points outside the DX crop frame...

I don't have an answer to your question, but would like to add another sorta related question. D600 sounds a great camera for the price and is probably selling like crazy at the moment. Yet at least in Europe the price was already reduced. Over here the 24-85mm kit was selling last week for some 2700 € and now it's about 2500 €. Released last week and already reduced. I wonder why is that? It's not like there are several competitors at this price level: D800, 5D Mk III and the coming A99 are more expensive.

Just wondering - not complaining - as a Pentax user who's about to buy into FF by some brand.

FloEvans said:

I did have one of the AF indicators not come on. Seemed to be an isolated lemon and not a flaw, unless other people have just not tested all of them

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That's interesting, because when I played with a D600 at the store, I couldn't select the AF point into the very upper right hand corner. The best I could do was the AF point immediately to the left of the upper right hand one. I assumed it was because I don't know enough about Nikon cameras and that I just couldn't find the right setting to allow that to happen. But your post left me wondering...

Can any D600 owner chime in and let us know if you CAN select the AF point at the very upper-right hand position of the group of AF points?

Pierrick said:

That's interesting, because when I played with a D600 at the store, I couldn't select the AF point into the very upper right hand corner. The best I could do was the AF point immediately to the left of the upper right hand one. I assumed it was because I don't know enough about Nikon cameras and that I just couldn't find the right setting to allow that to happen. But your post left me wondering...

Can any D600 owner chime in and let us know if you CAN select the AF point at the very upper-right hand position of the group of AF points?

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Mine was the middle to the far right. Did you test if the AF point was working? My AF point worked just fine, could not see that it was selected in the viewfinder though. Yeah, you should be able to select any of them in AF single point or 3d mode.

Already got a replacement, seems A-OK on this one.

There were posted an overlayed image on the canon forum i think where they compared the 6D and the D600 and all of the focus points of the 6D were inside the area of the D600, so the canons do not have more coverage area for their focus points.

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Rickard Hansson
Sweden

All selectable.

Pierrick said:

Can any D600 owner chime in and let us know if you CAN select the AF point at the very upper-right hand position of the group of AF points?

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Let's not forget that the hdmi out seems to be 95% of full 1080p size (has a black border around it). That's a major flub for those wanting to use an external recorder.

I have previously been somewhat critical of the D800/E cameras as a result of their QC defects (i.e., AF left side focus issue, etc.). However, the D600 camera is out, appears relatively problem free, and has been getting good reviews. Perhaps more importantly, the initial photographs taken with the D600 camera, that have been posted on this and other forums, appear to have generally better IQ than the D800/E postings. I am uncertain as to why this is the case, but the D600 photo postings have been uniformly good -- even the ones of the cats and dogs. I am not certain if this D600 "better photos" phenomena is due to a better AF system, an easier to operate camera, less pixels for better photos handheld (maybe 36 mp is just too freakin' much), etc. Interesting, though.