Nikon d610

The Nikon D610
is here and it is shipping. Since it’s October 8th release date at lot of people have been writing about the camera and no wonder. At a price tag of just $1999 the d610, with it’s 24.3-million pixels sensor is a steal.

Let’s sum up what’s on the web about it as of today, October 20th 2013:
– Nikon press release, brochure
– Dpreview published their preview based on a preproduction d610
– Ken Rockwell assembled an extensive review, also with all the specifications of the camera, its accessories and how it fares in comparison to the other Nikon’s as far as the specs go
– DXO Labs test the d610 and gives its sensor the same as the d600, very high, 94 grade. Their review covers not only what’s new in the camera, but also how it compares to the competition.
– Nikon Rumors confirms that users are not seeing any dust or oil spots, which as most people suspect was the reason for which Nikon decided to update the d600 so early in its life cycle.
– The Verge publishes an article concentrating on the difference between d600 and d610, while Imaging Resource puts the d610 in perspective to their d600 review.

d610

After digging into all that content we can clearly see that the d610 is a very slightly beefed up version of the d600. Is that bad? No, the d600 was, or is, a great camera, the oil issue of course created at first many problems for people, but nevertheless it still is a great camera with an amazing sensor. If the d610 is even better, than Nikon has raised the bar a tad higher.

So should you sell your d600 and head for your local photo store? definitely no, unless you think d610 looks so much better than d600… On the other hand, if you were thinking about buying the d600, but then decided to stick to your old body after hearing about the dust issues photographers were having, now may be the time to shell out that hard earned cash!

The d610 may not be an indestructible pro body, although it does have magnesium alloy top and rear covers, but don’t be fooled by that and the pop-up flash. It delivers outstanding 24MP images with 14 stops of dynamic range and very good high ISO capabilities. A few years ago all the pros would be ready to pay much more than 2K for it, so don’t get hyped about the fact that d800/ d800e has better resolution. Are you really making huge prints every second day? And even so, do you really think you would easily tell the difference? On top of that do you really have lenses which exceed the resolution of the 24MP sensor? I have retouched images for many famous photographers over the years and I can assure you, that many of them often shoot with funny old cameras and don’t mind the low resolution. So if you’re in for an upgrade and the extra K for d800 is a big leap, then don’t think about it and go for the d610; maybe just wait for a few more people to confirm the production version really rocks…

Tomasz