CameraCity, MobiCity's sister site that specialises in all things cameras at the right price, is the first in Australia to have the Nikon D600 for sale. It is now in stock and ready to ship at the lowest price.
Nikon D600 is Nikon's first full-frame high-spec digital SLR camera at an economical price. The camera boasts a powerful 24.3 Megapixels effective CMOS image sensor of size (35.9 x 24) mm. It runs on the super-fast EXPEED 3 image processor that assists in continuous precision snapshots up to 5.5 frames-per-second. It also provides a huge ISO settings range from as low as 50 to as high as 25,600, thus empowering the avid photographer to customize the quality based on current lighting environment.
The device is made of a magnesium alloy with a polycarbonate front. It exhibits a 3.2-inch TFT LCD display with a 170-degrees wide viewing angle and 921,000-dot resolution. The LCD offers five levels of brightness control through ambient light sensor. Its Eye-level Pentaprism optical viewfinder has a 0.70x magnification.
Nikon D600 captures images and videos with incredible detail. It comes with an advanced wide-area autofocus system that detects contrast and sharpens the quality of videos and images. It also offers intelligent Scene Recognition System, which automatically detects settings of the environment and sets exposures as well.
Other key features of the camera include - Full frame HD 1080p videography, USB 2.0, HDMI mini, Eye-Fi compatibility, SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card support, Nikon F bayonet mount, manual focus, 1/4000 second maximum shutter speed, built-in flash with 12 meters range, hotshoe, self-timer, 3D Color Matrix Metering II, Timelapse, optional WU-1b wireless adapter to connect with Wi-Fi device and a rechargeable Li-Ion battery powering up to 900 shots on a single charge.
Nikon D600 comes with a 12-month warranty. It can be purchased now from Camera City.
Hands on: Nikon D600 review
We've been expecting Nikon to announce a more affordable alternative to the groundbreaking Nikon D800 for quite a while now, but we weren't really expecting it to make it smaller than the Nikon D300s.
However, as the Nikon D600 measures 141x113x82mm, that is exactly what Nikon's engineers and designers have managed to do - even though it has a full-frame sensor and the D300s an APS-C format device. This should make it much easier to transport - which is good news for photographers who want a camera for everyday use.
The good news for image quality is that the newly designed sensor inside the D600 has 24.3 million effective pixels, roughly 12 million less than the D800 and this, coupled with the same Expeed 3 processing engine as inside the top-end Nikon D4, should mean that images are clean and detailed.
Also, Nikon hasn't pushed the boundaries of low light performance with the D600, sticking to the safe ISO 100-6400 native range and allowing expansion settings from the equivalent of IS 50 to ISO 25,600.
With 24.3 million effective pixels on its FX format sensor it's not really a surprise that the D600's maximum continuous shooting speed is 'just' 5.5fps. That's 1.5fps more than the 36MP D800 can manage at full resolution and with its standard battery in place.
According to Nikon UK's Hiromasa Sebata, the D600's maximum shooting rate doesn't increase if the battery pack is used.
For most people and most occasions 5.5 fps is more than enough and it should be sufficient for the average enthusiast sports photographer who is unlikely to see regular benefit from shooting at 8 or 10 fps.
Build and handling
At 850g with the battery and a card (760g without), the Nikon D600 isn't a lightweight model, but this compares very favourably with the 1kg weight of the Nikon D800. Nevertheless, its small size means that the Nikon D600 feels very dense, since the weight is packed into a small volume.
The top and rear shell sections of the camera are made from magnesium alloy, so its still pretty tough-feeling.
However, the reduction in the size of the camera in comparison with the Nikon D800 means that the grip is considerably smaller and those with big hands may find it a little confining. Some may also find the button controls are a little cramped and that the Multi selector control on the back of the camera a bit small for their thumb. But this is only in comparison with other full-frame cameras such as the D800, when comparing with similarly sized SLRs, it's pretty much business as usual.
Control-wise there are a few differences from the Nikon D800, and in several ways The D600 is more like the Nikon D7000. The bottom three buttons on the back of the D600 to the left of the LCD screen, for example, now access the white balance, image quality and sensitivity options as on the D7000.
These options can either be viewed on the secondary LCD on the top-plate or on the main LCD if the Info button has been pressed before the control button is pressed. These buttons also enable you to magnify or shrink and protect the image on the screen in review mode.
The top-plate of the D600 also has a mode dial on the left side (as you hold the camera) jut like the D7000, with a drive mode dial beneath.
However, the Live View and Movie switch on the back of the camera is lower down on the D600 than it is on the D7000, which arguably makes it easier to operate when looking at the main LCD screen.
Nikon has also moved the focus selector lock switch to around the Multi-selector that it governs, which seems a sensible space saving move.
Viewfinder and screen
We were only able to use the Nikon D600 indoors and under fairly dim artificial light, but the viewfinder provided a nice bright view, with no obvious darkening of the scene, corner shading or issues with the housing obstructing the view.
Like the Nikon D800, the NikonD600 has a 3.2-inch 921,000-dot LCD screen which automatically adjusts its brightness to take the ambient lighting conditions into account.
This provided a clear, detail view and we'll be looking out to see if it consistently represents image colour well when we get a full production sample in the next few days. We found that the Nikon D800's screen can be prone to giving images a green tinge.
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