[memo90061]

Thank you. Yeah from what I've seen Pentax has the cleaner high ISO pictures for an APS-C sensor.

Yeah the D600 looks really good. I'm just nervous about the oil and dust issue. :/

Yeah choices, choices! haha. I did think about renting the camera from lensrentals, but it's around 40 plus shipping. I could put that down for a lens. :O

What do you like to shoot?

[sb in ak]

Thank you. Yeah from what I've seen Pentax has the cleaner high ISO pictures for an APS-C sensor.

Yeah the D600 looks really good. I'm just nervous about the oil and dust issue. :/

Yeah choices, choices! haha. I did think about renting the camera from lensrentals, but it's around 40 plus shipping. I could put that down for a lens. :O

What do you like to shoot?

I'm mostly shooting landscapes and also just walkaround stuff (street shots, etc). I was drawn to Nikon from Canon FF for the dynamic range abilities. It's all about increasing the amount of keeper shots. I'm also looking to get into it semi-professionally.

I was pretty on the fence regarding the D600 due to the oil/dust issues but I figure that if it becomes a problem, I'll just invoke the warranty and send it back. I hope to do some travel photography in the next few months, so I wanted to start learning the camera now. Otherwise, it seems wise to wait a few months for the issue to quietly go away. I doubt Nikon will invoke any sort of recall.

[memo90061]

Oooh nice! I like taking some street shots too.

That's true. If it has issues you can just send it back.

I'm trying to try and decide soon because I might travel to Mexico in 3 weeks.

[mark lj]

It'll be interesting to see how you get on with the 600. Shadow recovery on the 800 is amazing - huge fan of the K-5 ability in this regard but the 800 is immense. As regards lenses I went with a couple of cheaper primes that were well reviewed. I need to get something wider soon but the 800 was worth it even if I had to scrimp and save for a few months for the right lenses. Detail/sharpness on the 24mm 2.8D is superb and cost a fraction of the 16-35 or the 17-35. I also have a 50 1.8 and the 105 f2 DC (which is amazing). I cancelled an order for the Zeiss 21mm as I felt it just didn't go quite wide enough but I'm still undecided. I'm not going for a long zoom, but the 200 f4 macro. It'll kill 2 birds with one stone.

[sb in ak]

It'll be interesting to see how you get on with the 600. Shadow recovery on the 800 is amazing - huge fan of the K-5 ability in this regard but the 800 is immense. As regards lenses I went with a couple of cheaper primes that were well reviewed. I need to get something wider soon but the 800 was worth it even if I had to scrimp and save for a few months for the right lenses. Detail/sharpness on the 24mm 2.8D is superb and cost a fraction of the 16-35 or the 17-35. I also have a 50 1.8 and the 105 f2 DC (which is amazing). I cancelled an order for the Zeiss 21mm as I felt it just didn't go quite wide enough but I'm still undecided. I'm not going for a long zoom, but the 200 f4 macro. It'll kill 2 birds with one stone.

I was pretty sold on the D600 after seeing the shadow recoveries done by this guy AndreasE over at Fred Miranda. First impressions with the D600 - FM Forums From what I've seen, the D600 is fantastic in this regard and probably just a tiny bit below the D800.

It's been a frustration of mine over the past 8 months that my 5D produces really clean, crisp files but cannot hold a candle to the K5 in shadow recovery. As soon I start pushing the 5D files, there's banding & noise. I'm hoping this switch takes the best of these worlds and puts them together into one camera.

I rather enjoyed my 17-40 f/4 on my Canon system, so the Nikkor 16-35 f/4 seemed like an obvious choice. I would have gone with the Tokina but want the ability to use my ND filters. The Nikkor's got VR too (which the 17-40 didn't) so that seems like a nice, albeit pricey switch.

I'm discovering pretty quickly that the Nikon lens equivalents are pretty pricey. Worth it probably but man, I'm going to be poor.....

[memo90061]

Oh my gosh! I'm blown away by the shadow recoveries! Wow. :O

[Raffwal]

That's true. If it has issues you can just send it back.

You guys have some amazing customer care or customer protection laws over there. Over here (in Finland) a B&M store doesn't have to take back a sold item. If it's defective, they must repair it or if it can't be repaired, then they might return the money. Only post order (and web order) stuff can in principle be returned within a 2 week period. But even then the situation for that is a bit unclear. According to the law the customer is allowed to "test" the item but not take it into real use. The retailers on the other hand tend to demand the item to be in such a condition that it can be sold again as new, legal or not.

So in practice a D600 with a problem should be sent to the (worse than useless) service site for weeks and hope that they can resolve the problem. No returning if not happy.

[tuco]

...
I've been thinking of full frame to get clean high ISO pictures, and love how bokeh looks.
...

FF won't do anything for how bokeh looks. That is a property of how a particular lens renders OOF not the format of a camera or amount of OOF.

[sb in ak]

Raffwal, I think here in the states a lot of the online retailers give you at least a few weeks to return the item if it's unacceptable. (I got mine from Adorama and I think it's 30 days right now). It has to be returned in like new condition and sometimes there is a max shutter count they will accept. From what I've heard here in the states, the Nikon turnaround time (if you decide to deal with the manufacturer instead) hasn't been too bad....maybe a week or two.

As far as bokeh, a photo taken of the same object with a D600 and D7000 from the same position with a lens of the same aperture should give thinner depth of field to the full frame shot. Of course, the quality of that bokeh is dependent on the lens. Maybe that's what memo was after?

[memo90061]

Yes that's what I was after. I just keep thinking of the lens I would get if I were to buy a full frame camera. I would love to buy the 50mm F/1.4.

[sb in ak]

I have the 50 1.4 with my Canon setup, and I really don't use it at or near the max very often. With the switch to Nikon I'm grabbing the 1.8 because for my shooting style, I just can't justify the higher price for the 1.4.

[memo90061]

I have used F1.4, but on my Canon T2i. I think I would buy the 50mm F/1.8 because of money, but would love the 50mm F/1.4.

I'm still not sure on what I'll do. I have a cousin in Mexico that wants to buy my camera, so if he buys my camera buy a new camera. I like trying different brands to see which one I like better. I've used Olympus, and Canon so far. For point and shoots I've only used Sony.

Do you have a fast lens for the Pentax K-5? That camera also looks amazing! Does it have good shadow recovery? Sorry if this is going off topic. haha

[sb in ak]

Right now I'm just down to my 35mm Macro for my K5. It's reasonably fast (2.8) but no speed demon considering it's a prime. However, it is quite versatile since it can do massive closeups. My only qualm is that the bokeh is not great (actually, it is quite nice in macro though). But that is asking a lot, as it is a macro after all. I also had the DA21 which gave exceptional color and contrast but just wasn't quite sharp enough for my landscape photos.

K5 shadow recovery is stellar. It takes anything Canon makes to the cleaners. You have tons more headroom to push the files in post processing without having to worry about banding. Otherwise, I actually kind of prefer my 5D Mark II files...with a good lens they are pretty darn crisp and clean at ISO 100. Really not a bad camera especially at today's price. Well, both are pretty good deals at today's prices.

I may actually sell the K5 setup though. My wallet is telling me I just can't afford two systems. But the K5 and a 18-135 sounds very appealing for my hikes as a versatile WR setup.

[sb in ak]

OK, update. Went for the D600, got it yesterday. I love it with a few reservations. It's harder to operate than my 5DII with heavy gloves on (the Alaskan perspective here ). The exposure simulation in live view blows compared to the Canon. But the photos just rock and the PP headroom is crazy. Worth the switch IMO...(either to the D600 or D800).

The bad news: 100 shots or so in and I already have dust problems in the upper left quadrant. I counted 20 or so when I was working on a bright sky in Silver Efex earlier. I'll report back later when I have a chance to get the rocket blower out as to whether it needs a wet clean. If that's the case, back to Nikon...don't want to void the warranty. Note: this is worse than my 5DII currently, which I've had for a year and have never felt like it needed a wet clean.

[RyanW]

The bad news: 100 shots or so in and I already have dust problems in the upper left quadrant.

That issue seems prevalent. Thom Hogan thinks it's some lubricant that was overdone a bit and after a certain amount of shutter actuations it becomes less of a problem. In other words you shoot off the excess lube. Also because it's lube a simple blower is not going to get rid of it.