Problem: Faint, dark circle on all photos, regardless of lens

I just noticed a faint, blurry, dark circle on all of my recent photos. It's not related to the lenses or exposure. The circle is about the size of the sun or moon if you were to take a shot of it with a 70mm lens. Cleaning didn't do anything. The camera is a refurbished D7000 I bought from Adorama in April.

Any idea what's wrong with it before I send to be repaired?

Uploading a picture will help the folks give you a better answer....... Do a search for "dust" as it may be dust on the sensor..

Pat in NH

Welcome to Nikonites Scott.

When you wrote "cleaning", what exactly did you clean? The lens, the mirror or the sensor? Spots like the one you mention are usually little dust particles that have been magnetically attracted to the camera's sensor. You have to read your camera's manual in order to follow the right procedure to clean the sensor. Sometimes just an air blower (bulb type) can dislodge them and other times you might have to either wet clean the sensor. Some people prefer to have this done at a local camera shop or by someone who has experience.

These spots usually appear when you use an aperture smaller than f11, but if it's a big piece of dust enough, it could appear from f8. Larger apertures usually won't show them that much.

​Best of luck.

Try this. Shoot a photo of a piece of white paper, first at minimum aperture and then at maximum. I suspect it will only show on one. As Marcel stated, it's likely dust on the sensor which can usually be remedied by a simple blowing off of the sensor with a bulb (not your mouth or compressed air). There are plenty of threads here about removing dust from the sensor, so poke around a little, particularly in the D600 forum.

Here is a little blog article with some dust samples:
How to Spot Dust on Your DSLR Sensor

nickt said:

Here is a little blog article with some dust samples:
How to Spot Dust on Your DSLR Sensor

Click to expand...

Nickt,

I liked the article... thanks...

Pat in NH

Welcome to the forum

If you fill out your profile we can better answer any questions that you might have.
You can do that at http://nikonites.com/profile.php?do=editprofile

Some useful links
http://support.nikonusa.com/app/ans.../nikon-product-manuals-available-for-download
Nikon | Imaging Products | Digitutor


Thanks

Upload a photo so we can see what you are talking about

​Guidelines to adding a photo to your post.

1. Resize photo to 1000px on the long side.
2. Resolution set to 72ppi (Pixels Per Inch)

These guidelines will be good for viewing on a computer but will not be good for printing. This will help safeguard your copyright.

Maybe you got a D7000 with a D600 shutter mechanism. haha. Picture would help..

Thank you for so many replies! Here's a sample of the issue in question. The spot is circled.

I meant the cleaning option in the camera's menu. The spot appears with all lenses. The shots are at wide open, maximum aperture (a small F number).

I've noticed now that the spot has been in most of my pictures since I bought the camera, but I only noticed it recently (I thought is was variations of sky or cloud contrast.)

Above is a shot I took of a blank wall. The lens (50mm 1.8) is wide open. I don't think it's dust because the blemish is too big. I'll try stopping down and will upload the image if it is much different.

I think you have more than one spot. It does look like dust and it means you'll have to google "dust on sensor" or "sensor cleaning", or, read in the manual about how to do it.

It's something that is unavoidable with DSLRs. Some seem to be more vulnerable than others, but at some point, the dust has to be cleaned out.

Did you look at that link I posted above with the samples of dust in various locations? That sure does look like dust or pollen or a tiny droplet of who knows what on the sensor. Did you try at a high aperture? I think you will see more at high f stops. Dust on the sensor does not look like 'dust' in the picture, it looks like darker, very out of focus orbs.

Definitely looks like dust, and if that's at the max aperture then it's likely a big chunk of dust. I suspect something that big should come off with a good shot of air from a bulb.

Yes, I've confirmed that it is dust. It didn't occur to me that depth of field is at both ends of the lens - the image being shot and the film plane. Apparently, the IR filter that the dust is on keeps the dust far enough away from the sensor that it is out of focus at wide apertures and in focus when stopped down.

​Thanks for everyone's help!

Recently had the same problem, solved in another thread:-
http://nikonites.com/d7000/17461-getting-black-spot-some-photos.html
Check if it helps you.

Scott Gehman said:

View attachment 57236Thank you for so many replies! Here's a sample of the issue in question. The spot is circled.

Click to expand...

Crikey! Only one spot? You should see my D600 AFTER getting it back from Nikon's service (three times since the beginning of September)! It has lots more than that!

Glad you've determined the problem and hope you will be able to get it cleaned off!