Sorryto bring you some bad news but I was in a similar position. I bought my wife aD600 in November. With the holidays we were not able to do too much with it butby February we noticed the issue of dust\oil\noise on many of her pictures. Mywife was a professional photographer and as we get closer to retirement we arethinking of a small cottage photo business or just enjoying a passionate hobby.This should have been a great experience.
[FONT="]We went to the Addison TexasNikon photo school on Feb 23 and 24th. We decided to wait until after the classto send it in as we followed Nikon's protocol. They reviewed the pictures wesent in and they said send it to them in California. On the 25th we sent it inwhich cost us $137 ($122 for shipping and insurance and another $15 for the boxand packing materials.) We sent it in two day UPS. They did not evenacknowledge receipt of the camera until the next week even thought we had proofof delivery. Once they looked at it they simply cleaned the sensor and sent itback. [/FONT]
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Rightout of the box, we barely had the camera body open for 10 seconds while weattached a lens, we experienced the same problem. We called them and wentthrough the hassle of sending in the pictures. By the way we received differentinstructions each time for the proper way to send files and each time it tookseveral tries. They really should know how to handle large files and beconsistent. We implied once again that we did not want to have to pay another$137 to send it back. We received the same email saying sorry but you will needto send us the camera again. We had enough. We were never offered a prepaid UPSlabel.[/FONT]
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Wewent to a great local distributor. We did not buy thisfrom them but since we have shopped there before they were gracious enough tolisten to our situation and send it in to the Melville operation on our behalf.Just like many, our camera was put on parts hold. They eventually, after 4 weeks andme getting on the phone with them, replaced the shutter mechanism and did acomplete low pass filter cleaning. They sent it back apologizing for the issuesand even sent me a check to repay me for my original shipping. They explained Ishould have been offered a free shipping label. There were several othermis-communications that are irrelevant as they had nothing to do with the issueat hand.
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Thecamera arrived on Thursday and we picked it up on Friday. Weshot some pics on Saturday and went to the Dallas zoo on Sunday to put itthrough some real shooting. We got home Sunday evening and we saw the issuereappear. We started shooting at around 11:30 AM at 1:05 PM we noticed thefirst issue. We figured this out as we reviewed the shots Sunday evening usingNikon’s software. The spots gradually got worse. Yes we do have the pics toback all of this up which we eventually got to send to Nikon on Monday.
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[FONT="]Mondayafternoon they issues an overnight UPS label. I boxed the camera up and sent itback to them. They had a manager intercept put on the label to review. My wifewill be travelling internationally next week and we needed the camera (werequested a replacement) before she left. I heard nothing on Tuesday morningbut followed up and found out that they had it. I was told I would hear backlater that day or early today. Nothingagain. I call up and am told they will speak with the service manager and putin a request for a replacement camera. I would hear within 24 hours. In lessthan 6 hours they called me and said that the service manager said there isonly one spot and they are simply going to clean it and send it back. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Nowthe pictures clearly show more than one spot and additional noise or again morespots. I asked them to review that as I do not believe they reviewed thepictures although why would they agree to overnight something for pickup afterthey saw the pictures if there was only one spot?
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Soin less than a week I received a refurbished camera with a new shuttermechanism and a cleaned low pass filter. In less than 4 days they requested thecamera back. This is the third time it is in for the same issue. They did notoffer to replace the camera. They are simply going to send it back after a sensorclean.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Hereis the dilemma: The original place I purchased the camera from hasgraciously agreed to take it back and put me into another camera. They said wecould either get another D600, a different camera or a store credit. That iscustomer service. That is a great customer experience. Nikon should learn alesson from this. Right now I am leaning towards getting rid of our Nikon Gear.You see we also bought a D3200 and a Nikon 105MM micro lens as well as someother smaller items. That may sounddrastic but that is how they have made us feel. We would rather have a nice workingmodel of the D600 but how do I in good conscience reward them with morebusiness after how we were treated and how the other people with poorly workingD600 were treated. While I have no idea how prevalent the issue is, the mannerin which they have handled it is disgusting. I am happy for all the people whoI know and hear about that have working D600. However, a $2000 plus investmentfor a consumer or a pro is a significant amount of money. With Nikon currentlyreporting more than a $159M profit this quarter (down almost 50% on a 5% increasein sales), why should their customers take this kid of treatment?
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[FONT="]Foreveryone with a good working D600 enjoy. For everyone who has been treatedpoorly by Nikon customer service I empathize with you. Luckily there are stillsome great companies that treat their customers with exceptional respect. Nikoncould learn a thing or two. They have brought fumeiyo upon themselves.[/FONT]
