Nikon D600 and living with dust spots

[niphotos]

Thanks for the advice Colin !!

[PhotoByTrace]

Hi all,
I thought I would update this thread. My D600 continued to shed the oil-like spots onto my sensor filter. I was struggling to remove the spots. The photo below was the last one I took in September before contacting Nikon to ask if they would again look at it and clean it.



I sent it off in October; it has been away for a month but came back Friday with a service report that reads
"Particles on sensor. Cleaned. Dismantled. Replaced shutter. Reassembled. Recalibrated and tested."

I'm hoping this will now signal the end of my issues. I haven't been out shooting with her again yet. Unfortunately I have some other priorities that are stealing all my energy. But hopefully soon I will be back shooting and sharing.

[Shadowman]

Hi all,
I thought I would update this thread. My D600 continued to shed the oil-like spots onto my sensor filter. I was struggling to remove the spots. The photo below was the last one I took in September before contacting Nikon to ask if they would again look at it and clean it.



I sent it off in October; it has been away for a month but came back Friday with a service report that reads
"Particles on sensor. Cleaned. Dismantled. Replaced shutter. Reassembled. Recalibrated and tested."

I'm hoping this will now signal the end of my issues. I haven't been out shooting with her again yet. Unfortunately I have some other priorities that are stealing all my energy. But hopefully soon I will be back shooting and sharing.

You need to take some tests shots immediately. If it wasn't corrected, your late response to the repair could appear misleading.

Fingers crossed that the repair was acceptable.

[PhotoByTrace]

You need to take some tests shots immediately. If it wasn't corrected, your late response to the repair could appear misleading.

Fingers crossed that the repair was acceptable.

Hi John, I did take a few photos this morning of a sheet of paper and examined for spots. Was happy that the sensor was indeed clean. I was also confident that the new shutter would keep the issue away; especially as I have read that is the main change they've made for the newly released D610.

However your words were echoing in my mind. I didn't have the ability to dedicate time to go shooting, but I did have the time to put her on a tripod and let a timelapse do it's thing and accumulate some shutter actuations. I haven't taken a timelapse before, but knew where the settings were in the menu and wasn't aiming for a masterpiece, just some peace of mind.

In the process I've learned a few things:

• I had ASSumed I'd have access to each individual photo as well as the resultant timelapse video. I now know that is not the case when using that setting. As a result I wasn't very systematic in that I didn't take before and after the timelapse sequence shots without any movement of the camera.
• I learned not to take it in portrait as video doesn't auto-rotate
• I learned to be mindful of settings to reduce resultant timelapse flicker.

So while I hadn't intended this to be part of my continuing photographic education it has turned out that way. I often say a shoot doesn't go by without me learning something, today was no different.

Unfortunately I've also learned that the days of splatter in my photos are not behind me
Trying not to be overly disappointed and to keep it in perspective.

Timelapses and images straight out of camera can be found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/iu0xguzl0y85g93/QnPEXmPMNx

Before with corrected exposure and added contrast:



After 800 actuations with corrected exposure and added contrast:

[Shadowman]

Hi John, I did take a few photos this morning of a sheet of paper and examined for spots. Was happy that the sensor was indeed clean. I was also confident that the new shutter would keep the issue away; especially as I have read that is the main change they've made for the newly released D610.

After 800 actuations with corrected exposure and added contrast:

Trace,

Glad you are happy with the repair and found a project to stimulate your imagination. The edits look great, lot of contrast in the first image. Will you be further processing these two images?

[Downrigger]

My D600 needed a cleaning pretty badly after about 1500 shots. The next 1500 were clean, but I was in the rural northeast US. (Humid, not dusty) When I returned to the Southwest (Desert, dusty) it took no time at all for spots to reappear. So part of it is definitely the environment, and I can only hope, to the extent the spots are camera-generated, that this runs its course. But does anyone know why these are so predominantly in the upper left of the image field? (I guess that’s lower right sensor) At least they are in mine and it appears the same for Trace. The regional predominance suggests to me an in-camera problem I would think, or the spots would be random. (Or not?)
I don’t have a lot of luck with sensor self clean and using a hand held puffer to clean up my sensor and I’m terrified of hurting the sensor cleaning myself, with any sort of tool, until someone gives me some hands on teaching. For the D600, this is literally the one flaw in an otherwise bright picture.

[PhotoByTrace]

Trace,

Glad you are happy with the repair and found a project to stimulate your imagination. The edits look great, lot of contrast in the first image. Will you be further processing these two images?

Hi John,
Thanks for commenting. I did indeed start out the day happy with the with the repair, and really pleased that I have a new shutter and a new start. But I wasn't so happy by the end. I won't be doing any further editing of these photos; they were never actually intended for an audience. I just wanted to put on a few hundred shots quickly to give myself peace of mind that my problem had indeed been fixed; pretty much as you suggested.

I kind of wish I hadn't posted. I guess I decided to post the way I did and share them for two reasons: I wanted to share my disappointment at finding spots reappearing in my photos but I was also trying very much to take some positives from the day and from trying a new technique, even if I considered the timelapse output of that not to be of a quality to share.

Why I chose those photos to share- the first one shows a clean wall and clean sensor; the second one not so much. They were taken an hour apart. The first before the timelapses, the second after; though I realise before and after shots really need to be same scene, same orientation for differences to be apparent. But that wasn't what I'd set out to do at the time, so didn't give it any thought. The problem is really quite minor at this point. It is not especially obvious and would be easily editable if I were to clean the shots.

But I am disappointed to see spots starting to reappear with the first day of shooting with the new shutter. I see the spots appearing during the timelapse, but the quality of the timelapse videos once compressed for online viewing is so poor that I didn't embed them here. They can be downloaded from my dropbox link above if anyone is really that interested.

So, in essence, I didn't get that peace of mind that I sought. And now I need to decide if I'm just going to live with it or somehow find the energy to go back to Nikon and try again for a solution. If I wasn't a perfectionist who likes landscape shooting at small apertures, it really wouldn't be much of an issue at all... As has been stressed in this thread there are ways of dealing with this in post-production and that cleaning my sensor regularly will need to become a part of my life and something to budget for along with all my other equipment and maintenance. Perhaps I just need to accept this flaw in this otherwise amazing camera and move on.

[PhotoByTrace]

My D600 needed a cleaning pretty badly after about 1500 shots. The next 1500 were clean, but I was in the rural northeast US. (Humid, not dusty) When I returned to the Southwest (Desert, dusty) it took no time at all for spots to reappear. So part of it is definitely the environment, and I can only hope, to the extent the spots are camera-generated, that this runs its course. But does anyone know why these are so predominantly in the upper left of the image field? (I guess that’s lower right sensor) At least they are in mine and it appears the same for Trace. The regional predominance suggests to me an in-camera problem I would think, or the spots would be random. (Or not?)
I don’t have a lot of luck with sensor self clean and using a hand held puffer to clean up my sensor and I’m terrified of hurting the sensor cleaning myself, with any sort of tool, until someone gives me some hands on teaching. For the D600, this is literally the one flaw in an otherwise bright picture.

Hi Mark, After yesterday I have no doubt that it is the camera generating the vast majority of the spots and they are not random. I'm sure when I change lenses some contamination occurs, but to watch spots appear during a timelapse gave me some clarity on the issue.
I do not have success with blowing the particles away. They are oily/sticky. I've tried a couple of different methods and only had success with wet cleaning to remove the particles and even then I struggle with my edges and corners. There are some methods I haven't tried yet. If you read back through the thread you'll see recommendations on various products; and yes, it is a bit terrifying without good guidance.


Edit... Mark... those spots on the filter are actually lower left. Just vertically flipped.

[Shadowman]

Hi John,
Thanks for commenting. I did indeed start out the day happy with the with the repair, and really pleased that I have a new shutter and a new start. But I wasn't so happy by the end. I won't be doing any further editing of these photos; they were never actually intended for an audience. I just wanted to put on a few hundred shots quickly to give myself peace of mind that my problem had indeed been fixed; pretty much as you suggested.

I kind of wish I hadn't posted. I guess I decided to post the way I did and share them for two reasons: I wanted to share my disappointment at finding spots reappearing in my photos but I was also trying very much to take some positives from the day and from trying a new technique, even if I considered the timelapse output of that not to be of a quality to share.

Why I chose those photos to share- the first one shows a clean wall and clean sensor; the second one not so much. They were taken an hour apart. The first before the timelapses, the second after; though I realise before and after shots really need to be same scene, same orientation for differences to be apparent. But that wasn't what I'd set out to do at the time, so didn't give it any thought. The problem is really quite minor at this point. It is not especially obvious and would be easily editable if I were to clean the shots.

But I am disappointed to see spots starting to reappear with the first day of shooting with the new shutter. I see the spots appearing during the timelapse, but the quality of the timelapse videos once compressed for online viewing is so poor that I didn't embed them here. They can be downloaded from my dropbox link above if anyone is really that interested.

So, in essence, I didn't get that peace of mind that I sought. And now I need to decide if I'm just going to live with it or somehow find the energy to go back to Nikon and try again for a solution. If I wasn't a perfectionist who likes landscape shooting at small apertures, it really wouldn't be much of an issue at all... As has been stressed in this thread there are ways of dealing with this in post-production and that cleaning my sensor regularly will need to become a part of my life and something to budget for along with all my other equipment and maintenance. Perhaps I just need to accept this flaw in this otherwise amazing camera and move on.

The first shot above looks clean, noticed a spec in the second image but assumed it was spackling on the wall. Not sure if that is what you are referring to, also I assume you've isolated the spots and are sure it's not on the lens. rear lens mount. I had a recent issue where a piece of rubber surrounding the focusing screen became lodged behind the screen and would appear in my shots as a small spot in the left hand corner. I could very easily edit the defect but became obsessed with getting rid of it. Thankfully, the repair corrected the problem.

[jcuknz]

After reading this worrying thread I wonder if cleaning unfortunately makes the problem worse in as much as how much influence has static on the process and perhaps getting a static wrist strap .... Colin ?

[Centuri]

Hi Trace, I've noticed that my dust spots are similar to yours in that there is a concentration around the top left of the image. i wonder if that's just coincidence or if there is a reason for that?

so heres a pic i just took today, my body is almost 12 months old and shot this with a near new lens so i know its not an issue with dust elsewhere.



until now i haven't been brave enough to clean it myself, but like i said I'm coming up on 12 months for my warranty so i figured best to have it checked out by the pros while i still can.

[Sega62]

Hi,

I really feel Nikon should change the Shutter, I've been on the web, and seen it happened.
Hopefully it will fix that problem, cause it IS a real problem.
Just talk to the right person, and INSIST on a new shutter or camera.
This should not happen, you pay big money for a product, not for a defective camera.
Its the reason I did not buy the D600, I went another road.