D600 or D800

[mike_vine]

Hi - it's a simple question - with a D800 only costing £100 more than a D600 at current street prices, is there any reason to buy a D600

rather than a D800.

[Dieter Schaefer]

<p>Is the price the only difference between the two? I don't think so!<br>

Buy the one that suits your needs better - and for once you have the great chance of not needing to include the price into your considerations.</p>

[Rene11664880918]

<p>I agree with Dieter but there are exceptions all the time.......<br>

Prices in Japan:</p>

<p>D600 196,000 Yen (2.500.00 USD)<br>

D800 313,000 Yen (3.992.00 USD)<br>

The difference is 117,000 Yen (1.492.00 USD). If in the UK the difference is only £100 it seems to me that by buying a D800 you get more value for your money. <br>

In this case I wouldn't hesitate and I would go for a D800 any day of the week.</p>

 

[johnw63]

<p>I'd want to verify those prices. Post where you see them at only 100 pounds difference.</p>

<p>Jessops has an online only deal going. The D800 is 2269 pounds and the D600 is 1955 pounds. That's roughly 300 pounds. </p>

<p>At BH Photo , over here, there is about $1000 difference, which would be about 600 pounds. </p>

<p>Jessops looks like a good deal, but it's not just 100 pounds difference. </p>

<p> </p>

[alex_zepeda]

<p>Amazon UK has the D800 listed at 2204.18 GBP and the D600 at 1974.44 GBP.<br>

Cameraworld lists the D800 at 2099 GBP, and the D600 at 1955 GBP.</p>

<p>Wolfram Alpha lists those at about $373 and $233 (USD) difference respectively... both are a far cry from the nearly $900 differentiation at B&H.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>Aside from the obvious difference in the sensor and overall size of the camera, the D800 has features that the D600 doesn't that make it a better camera and overall value IF you need those features, and worth the additional cost whatever the difference in cost is. If you don't need those features, save the money.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>At that price difference, I'd see only one big reason to get the D600: the smaller body, if you like those ergonomics better.<br>

But that price of the D600 won't stay that way. You're quoting the real-life street price of the D800, which is available, versus the official introduction price of the D600, which currently probably no shop has actually on stock. That's apples and oranges. Wait a little till the D600 is normally available, and the price difference will become much more apparent.</p>

[alastair_anderson]

<p>Other reasons to prefer the D600 to the D800 are:<br>

1. better viewfinder for wearers of spectacles<br>

2. smaller, therfore more manageable file sizes<br>

Personally I would much rather have the better AF system of the D800 and I think it's probably worth the premium. I agree with Wouter however; we don't really know what the premium is yet.</p>

[mike_halliwell]

<p>I'd still like to get the D800 at the US price of $3000 (@$1.61 : £1) = £1860 :-(</p>

<p>I wonder if the D600 will 'steal' D800 sales? In which case the D800 price <strong><em>may</em> </strong>drop!</p>

<p>Currently I'd get a D800, but that's only while the prices are so similar.</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>If in the UK the difference is only £100 it seems to me that by buying a D800</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br /><br />It's more likely to be less value for money if you buy a D600!</p>

[erik_christensen3]

<p>Wouter you are right that shops do not have stock yet, for which reason the prices quoted for D600 may be wrong. However, several shops around the world accept pre-order, which means the stick to these prices. In some countries the difference is extremely small - Japan, however, is getting penalised for what ever reason.</p>

[mike_earussi1]

<p>Maybe the AF actually works correctly on the D600. That alone might be a good enough reason.</p>

[wade_roth]

This looks like a pretty good comparison of the two, <<http://www.nphotomag.com/2012/09/14/nikon-d600-vs-

d800-the-20-things-you-need-to-know/>>.

-- Wade

[ShunCheung]

<p>First of all, it does not sound right that the price difference between the D600 and D800 is only £100. Recall that when the D800 was first introduced and people were rushing to pre-order, I posted several times that by pre-ordering, you guarantee that you are paying the highest price?</p>

<p>Looking back, Nikon originally announced the D800 for £2400 back in February, but in March Nikon UK claimed that they had made a "mistake" and raised the price to £2600 and there was much uproar. Now the price has come down to somewhere around £2100 and £2200: <a href="http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2163476/mistake-leads-nikon-price-increases">http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2163476/mistake-leads-nikon-price-increases</a></p>

<p>In other words, we are now comparing a D800 with some discount after the initial high demand is fulfilled vs. a D600 that is brand new and not yet shipped. Most likely, the price for the D600 will also come down after a few months and then the price spread will be more realistic. That is, you are over-paying at the current D600 price in the UK.</p>

<p>I have not used a D600 yet so that it is premature for me to compare it against the D800, but I am a bit skeptical about using the Multi-CAM 4800 on FX; I am sure AF on the D600 is good enough, but I prefer more (51 vs. 39) AF points to cover the FX frame, especially more cross-type AF points (15 vs. 9). Despite all the complaints we read on the web, I find AF on the D800 really good, even better than AF on the D3 series.</p>

<p>Based on my experience with the D7000, I am sure construction for the D600 is fine. 24MP vs. 36MP is not a huge difference in reality. The smaller image files from the D600 means a slightly faster frame rate: 5.5 fps vs. only 4 on the D800. I prefer some of the controls on the D800 such as using the main command dial to control the SPAM exposure modes rather the knob on the D600/D7000.</p>

<p>If the price difference is only £100, I think I would opt for the D800 for the better AF and controls. When the price spread eventaully becomes wider, it'll depend on whether you prefer the samller D600 body or larger D800 body with more dedicated controls. I'll provide more info after I get to use the D600 a bit; it is too early at this point.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Earlier I did not see the link Wade Roth provides: <a href="http://www.nphotomag.com/2012/09/14/nikon-d600-vs-d800-the-20-things-you-need-to-know/">http://www.nphotomag.com/2012/09/14/nikon-d600-vs-d800-the-20-things-you-need-to-know/</a><br>

Their first point is the same as what I made:</p>

<blockquote>

<h3>1. Price difference</h3>

<p>The <a href="http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/09/13/nikon-d600-release-date-price-specs-confirmed/">Nikon D600 price tag</a> is £1956 in the UK, which is £650 lower than the official price for the D800. Currently, the D800 is available online for as little as £2200-2300, so the differential is much smaller. But that will change once dealers start discounting the D600, and we expect the differential to be restored.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Their 20 differences provide a good comparison based on Nikon's specifications. After people get to use the D600 for a while, I think we'll have an even better idea about how they compare under real-life conditions.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>At the current UK prices (and bearing in mind the D800 is currently about £2000 duty free in Heathrow airport, which says something about the premium that I seem to have paid for the E version...) the price advantage of the D600 is negligible. If you're choosing between the cameras based on specs, the primary advantages I can see to the D600 are:</p>

<ul>

<li>Slightly faster frame rate (5.5fps vs 4fps) in full frame mode (the article linked above claims the D800 gets to 6fps with a grip, but that's only for DX crop)</li>

<li>Bigger buffer in terms of frame count in JPEG mode (they're roughly the same in raw mode)</li>

<li>The quiet shutter mode is actually quiet (this has been a cause of 5D2 envy for me in the past)</li>

<li>It's a little smaller and lighter (although once you've put the lenses I tend to carry on it, not so much, and that may affect the balance)</li>

</ul>

<p>In pretty much every other way (notably autofocus and control points) the D800 is the better-specced camera. This makes perfect sense at the US price differential; at current UK list prices, the D600 is a tougher sell. When it drops to the £1500-£1700 range, there'll be more of an argument for asking whether you need the benefits of the D800; for now, to me, it's more a case of whether you need the small advantages I've listed - otherwise I'd say get a D800. (There's also the file size issue, which I still think Nikon should have solved by offering a "small RAW" format on the D800, but that's always going to be a trade off against pixel count so I'm not really prepared to call it that much of a disadvantage.)</p>

[allan_jamieson2]

<p>It is a shame that the D600 has a less capable AF module than the D800; it might have justified a price close to the D800 if it had the same AF module, as that would have been closer to the Canon 5D3 specs and not everyone wants or needs 36MP. At current UK prices the D600 is relatively poor value compared to the D800, which as Shun points out was originally over priced in the UK and then increased in price when Nikon realised how much Canon were asking for their new 5D3. Allegedly, an internal pricing error...</p>

<p>Best bet if you want a D600 in the UK is to wait a few months and then the price will come down to more realistic levels. Meantime if you have around £2000 burning a hole in your pocket, the D800 is probably the better value camera pound for pound. It makes you wonder why Nikon didn't introduce a D700 version 2 years or so ago with the D3X 24MP sensor, they cannot have sold that many D3X cameras worldwide with the price tag that model carried until earlier this year. In many ways the D600 is a cut down version of the camera that Nikon should have brought out years ago. You have to wonder at the reasoning behind their decision not to offer an affordable rival to the Canon 5D2 until this year. Chances are that even with a "lesser" AF module that the D600 may well have better AF abilities than the Canon 5D2 ever had and when it comes down to it if you were using it for macro or landscape you will probably not be using the autofocus anyway. If it were priced at US levels that camera would be a best seller in the UK and nobody would care what autofocus module it had.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Incidentally, I don't want to sound too ungrateful to Nikon for the frame rate increase. The 4fps of the D800 is definitely a concern for people who like action shooting, and 5.5 <em>is</em> a significant improvement (though not so much to someone coming from a D300 or D700 with a grip). What disappointed me slightly is that, by putting D7000-grade autofocus in there in an attempt not to compete with the D800 (presumably) they've also made the D600 less of a direct alternative to the 5D3, for anyone not dedicated to a system.</p>

<p>As a loyal Nikon fan, I was hoping to be able to tell my Canon-shooting friends, who have been eyeing the 5D3, that they should come to the dark (lens) side and save a lot of money by getting a functionally-equivalent D600 instead. As it is, the 5D3 still has a selling point for action shooters in the spec of its autofocus system (except at f/8). If the D600 had exceeded the 5D3 frame rate rather than just (almost) reaching parity, or if the AF disadvantage were less appreciable, the 5D3 premium would be less justifiable.</p>

<p>But a bigger price difference than we're currently seeing in the UK would do it too. :-)</p>

<p>Oh, and I'd also missed that the D600 has some infrared trigger sensors. I'm a little disappointed to be cabled on my D700 and D800 - the infrared trigger on my 300D was handy...</p>

<p>[Edit: Cross-over with Allan, who has similar reasoning to me.]</p>

[alastair_anderson]

<p>Andrew, it seems to me that you have listed the main advantages of the D600 but you failed to mention the difference in viewfinder eye point which will be a consideration for some.<br>

By the way my D800 was returned to me in good order. In addition to attending to the left autofocus issue they cleaned the camera (sensor and finder) and installed the latest firmware, all at no cost. I'm very impressed with Nikon UK.</p>

[elliot1]

<p><em>"The 4fps of the D800 is definitely a concern for people who like action shooting, and 5.5 is a significant improvement"</em><br /> <br /> The D800 shoots at that speed in DX mode or 1.2x crop mode. The 1.2x crop mode gives you about a 24mp image.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Alastair - I'd not even noticed the eye point difference; thank you for pointing it out. And I'm glad you're happy with Nikon UK! (Me too, since they got my camera cleaned before I needed to get one a plane...)</p>

<p>Elliot: I always forget about the 1.2x crop. I really must learn to use it...</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>To be precise, the D800 can capture at 5 fps in the 1.2x crop or DX crop modes, without the MD-D12. In the full FX mode or 5:4 crop mode, it is only 4 fps. By itself, the D800 never quite gets to the D600's 5.5 fps.</p>

<p>If you add the MB-D12 grip with the right batteries, the D800 can capture at 6 fps in the DX crop mode.</p>

<p>Of course it is by design the lower-grade D7000 has the 39-AF-point Multi-CAM 4800 instead of the 51-AF-point Multi-CAM 3500 on the D300/D300S and all Nikon FX DSLRs prior to the D600, which is effectively the "FX version of the D7000." If you want Nikon's best AF module, you need to buy the higher-end model.</p>

[shiang_wang1]

According to Nikon USA website, eyepoint for D800, D600 is 19.5mm, 20.6mm respectively. If F100 (21mm) is used as a

reference, I am less strained looking through F100 viewfinder than D800. The difference is apparent. D4 and F6 both

have 18mm only. So more high-end models get lower eyepoint?

[Two23]

<p>I think I would wait to see if that's the actual price it's actually selling for after a month or so, and would only even consider ordering after hearing numerous reviews. I would definitely NOT preorder one at that price, but would rather look for a used D800. (Or, if it were me, I'd be more likely to buy an Ebony SV45TE if spending that kind of money on a camera.)</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>I believe the D600 has two selections for presets so you can quickly switch from one type of shooting to another, let's say from sports mode to landscape. You can't switch easily with the D800. You have to go trough the slow menu selection.</p>