Nikon - D610 DSLR Camera (Body Only) - Black

I obtained the Nikon D610 specifically for the better sensitivity of a more modern sensor. I almost went with the 7000 series, but in the end decided the FX format made more sense. Hmmm what about the D800? I looked at the D800. Drool did and continues to run down my chin at such a thing. I came to me senses though and decided, for now, it was more than I needed to solve my sports light sensitivity issues. Hmmm what about the D600? I heard about the D600 oil spot problems and wasn't pleased with Nikon's handling of the issue. Fortunately, the 610 came out in the nick of time for the 2013 football season and was available at Best Buy with zero interest. This got me off the fence and to the nearest Best Buy stocking the 610. Home I went with one for the big game... THAT NIGHT! UPGRADE FROM D3000 Our previous camera is the D3000 with two kit lenses. It is a wonderful, albeit somewhat delicate, starter set. Many great pics continue to emerge from this camera. However, light challenged sports photography pushes this camera well beyond reasonable limits. With some hard work, and twiddling of image files, I obtained some good football photos with a later purchased 300mm f/4 lens. Many were published in the local news outlets. FOOTBALL - ENTER THE D610 Into this situation I put the 610 with instant and amazing results. The sensor sensitivity is astounding. The ISO settings beyond the top end, H+, are, of course, noisy, but provide quite usable images with quick action-stopping shutter speeds. Eureka. Quite suddenly sensor sensitivity is no longer a worry on the football field. Understand I went from the worst case CCD sensor D3000 to a modern CMOS FX sensor so my wow factor incorporates a very very wide swing in technology. YMMV. MENU SYSTEM Recall this D610 went from box to field in less than 11 hours after a good battery charge at work. I literally entered the field with a camera I had never touched before. I fumbled with the menus and settings. Sports mode works pretty well and lots of good images came forth. Sometimes I like to set things manually for the field lighting and so I did with this new camera. That worked quite well, but I could not, for the life of me, turn off the autofocus assist light. I felt like, and looked like, a complete dork with the autofocus light flashing despite the big 300mm lens. I didn't have time to fuss with it so I simply continued to take shots and good ones at that. Later I finally researched the manual to find the setting to turn off that light. The point to take away from this is not every option is obvious in the menu system when you are in a rush. Don't fret though... gadget hounds, like you all, well learn the menus quick enough. BASKETBALL AND DX LENSES Later work for basketball was a bit more difficult. Gyms vary in brightness (as do football fields), but the real problem is my faster 300mm lens, despite the larger image in the FX sensor, was too much magnification for many of the circumstances. Thus, I fell back to the telezoom from the D3000 starter kit. The 610 handles DX lenses just fine by reducing the field of view automatically (I think you can force it to use the whole sensor with DX lenses if you want). This slower lens combined with the incredible ISO sensitivity solved the problem of how to make motion freezing basketball images with "good enough" color, etc. DX lenses on FX cameras are not something you really want to live with and I've ordered a Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 AFD FX lens (a bargain lens - check it out) to address this for spring baseball season and beyond. That said, I very much appreciate the D610 providing some way to use just about any Nikon lens even if a compromise. SNAP RATE The cycle rate is quick. Turning a knob to set single fire, slow continuous or fast continuous is very nice and a welcome feature. FOCUSING The D610 focus points are, apparently, just like the 70XX DX and are crowded in the middle of the FX frame. This is a little weird, but I've gotten use to it. Autofocus can be a little off at times, but I have more good images than bad so the scorecard of the D610 is in good shape. The D3000 focus system works a little better IMO. VIDEO Yes this camera has video capability. It works with both FX and DX lenses. Video files for DX are smaller, I think, than with FX. Regardless, this thing will choke your card with amazingly large HD videos with the flip of a few camera settings. I didn't really care about this until I used it a time or two. It's nice, but isn't why I bought the camera. An observation while videoing is the auto focus doesn't seem to work like you've likely come to know in a real video camera. I press the shutter button to initiate a refocus. It's clumsy. There is likely a better method I haven't found yet to take better videos. Video straight to digital files is a great thing, but the D610 doesn't make me want to stop using my 2002 vintage Sony mini-DV SD video camera which functions much better. The D610 is clearly designed for taking pictures with video as a nice side capability. BATTERY LIFE I've nothing bad to say about the D610 battery life. I'll be ordering a spare battery simply because I should, but the one that came with the camera easily yields 700+ images with a big heavy auto-focus zoom. I do wish the D3000 and D610 would use the same battery, but that's life and I understand why they differ. MEMORY CARD I specifically avoid CF cards and I don't regret it one bit. I like SD and the D610 supports two with a variety of redundancy modes. I'm quite pleased with this arrangement. GOOD, BUT NOT GREAT VALUE Laying down the coin for something like this can cause one to pause. The upgrade to a modern FX sensor has solved my particular ISO issues. A D7100 DX or equiv. would have likely done so as well and at quite a bit less cost. I just had to have FX so that's my own fault. 4 STARS Getting a perfect score from me requires a... perfect score. The D610 comes close. The small DX focusing system on an FX sensor is a bit odd. Given the D600 goes for $1500 or so suggests the $2000 price tag for a D610 may be a bit high. I see the price came down to $1900 so perhaps we are seeing a reality check in play. If this FX camera had an FX focusing system, I'd say five stars. I bought it though so I guess it is worth it to me. I admit part of me simply wanted an FX to say I have an FX. Sigh. CONCLUSION The D610 is a good camera with great sensitivity that I'm glad to own. Time will tell about it's long term ruggedness. Despite the few issues, for the moment it is doing exactly what I need it to do... and I can't ask much more from my equipment.

I upgraded from a D5200 to a D5300 and finally decided I really wanted that next level of sharpness and low light performance and went with the cheapest full frame nikon offered. And let me say it was a definite step up and picture quality like I had never seen before. This camera was unbelievable. Within just a matter of days I felt right at home with all of the dials and controls and could not have been more pleased with my purchase. I LOVED this camera!! Then after only 11 days I noticed some spots on my computer when I was editing in Lightroom. At first it was very hard to see but then when I really started looking there were 3 dark spots on every image I had taken at the same exact place. Even with different lenses. So to make a long story short I returned the camera and exchanged for the exact model. I shot several photos over the next couple of days and was completely shocked to find spots again! These were at different places than the previous camera and there were only 2 spots this time. I called Nikon and was told it was a known issue EVEN WITH THE D610. Everyone already knew about the D600 oil spots but from everything I had read the D610 had completely fixed this issue. I was told to mail the camera in but I told the Nikon rep this was my 2nd camera in less than 2 weeks and I would return it to best buy since I was still under my return window. When I did the return the next day the sales rep looked at the store demo D610 and sure enough after zooming in there were spots on it as well. I have never been so disappointed with a purchase before. I absolutely loved this camera. But I just can't see spending this kind of money and having to put up with spots on my photos. I know I can take them out in post but do I really want to worry with that after spending nearly $2000?? For now I am trying out a Sony A7 full frame mirrorless camera but it is quite different. It is very slow compared to the Nikon and the electronic view finder is going to take a while to get used to.

I don't usually write product reviews, but I feel like there are a lot of people who may need a little encouragement before deciding to purchase this camera. Reading through this product page can certainly drive one crazy trying to filter through actual reviews and the bitter remarks about D600s and sensor debris. I owned a D600 and it did have problems with oil spots on the sensor. I understand that not all D600s have this problem, but mine did, even after it was refurbished by Nikon. For those of you who have a D600 with no problems, you lucked out and have no reason to upgrade to the D610. For those who DID have problems with a D600 and are feeling apprehensive, come on over to the D610. I'm happy with mine. And finally, for those who have not owned either camera and are wondering if it is a camera worthy of purchase, maybe you're considering going from DX to FX, I highly recommend it. I also own a D7000, which I love, but I wanted to make the jump to an FX body. The D600 was the natural choice for me with its "affordable" price and overall fantastic performance. Oil issues aside, I really liked the D600. And since the D610 is virtually identical in specifications I know it will perform amazingly. I do a lot of long exposure photographs of stars out in the desert. The low-light capabilities of this camera have been nothing short of impressive. The amount of noise in the images at higher ISOs (1600 and 3200) has been dramatically reduced from the shots I was taking with the D7000. My other focus is wildlife photography, for which I will still primarily use my D7000, but the D610's 6fps burst rate is a really nice feature in case some Bar-Tailed Godwit(rare bird) flies by while I'm taking some seascape shots.

At around $1900 this FX (Full-Frame) body offers all the features of the $5500 Nikon D4 at a fraction of the price. It even has a 24 MP sensor, while the D4 is still a 15MP! The only thing holding this back from being a true "professional" body is the lack of dedicated buttons for things like image size or ISO. All of those features are there, but you might need to dig them out from a maze of menus on the LCD screen. But, as someone that isn't making a living off this rig, I'll gladly dig a little through menus to get the feature I want than pay $3000 extra to get a dedicated button. I love this camera body! The AF is fast a true. I've previously owned a Nikon D90 and D70. I've played with the D4, and the D300. For someone wanting to get into true FF FX lenses, this is the body to get. Don't sweat the D800/D800e. It's another $1000, and the extra mega pixels (it's 36MP) is wasted unless you have $2000-5000 glass to shoot through. Get this body, and pair it with the very inexpensively priced Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 G lens. You'll get amazing portraits, and beautiful bokeh at f2.2 or lower. I also own the Nikkor 24-85mm kit lens, which is not terrible, and a good to poor quality Nikkor 70-300mm G. The 50mm is the sharpest of the lot. Stop it to around f4, and it's sharp as a tack. Just picked up a Tokina 16-28mm Pro AT-X for some ultra-wide angle shots, and this D610 is doing a great job controlling chromatic aberration. Again, it's the best DSLR I've even owned. It was a huge step up from the DX format D70 and D90. And I don't envy my brother-in-laws D800e, because he doesn't have the glass to make the 36MP sensor shine. SO he's getting images that look like mine, at larger file size. What a waste.

I've had the Nikon D610 for about a month now and I do really like it. But I don't love it. After years of internal debate and another year of saving every nickel and dime I was able to scrounge up enough to make the jump from the D90 to the D610. So enough with the backstory... The Feel- The camera is a good size but like all Nikons I feel they lack in ergonomics compared to cannons (which feel more natural in your hands). Nice weight but not overly bulky. Adjustments- For the most part the button and menu options and locations are pretty intuitive. I do wish that Nikon had a button to adjust ISO faster (but that's just nitpicking). I shoot 99.95% of my shots in Manual so being able to adjust on the fly is important. Images- I always shoot in RAW (a must) and with this camera I was able to take a lot of under exposed shots and make they useable. It works very well in lower light. I would say images up to 800 ISO are still usable. The falloff on low aperture shots is very smooth and looks fantastic (compared to a crop frame). Odd and Ends- the double SD card slots is great (especially when you shoot RAW). The strap is cheap (okay I know this is really nitpicking but for $2k the dang strap should be of a higher quality). On camera flash- nice to have (the Cannon 6D does not) but I never use it- EVER! I have two Yongnuo speed lights I keep in my bag (FYI for $75 you can't beat it- buy like two of them). Overall- like I said in the beginning, I like it (a lot) but I don't love it. But for the cost- you get a really nice camera.

This camera is easy to use and great for beginners and even for pro-sumers. The Nikon D610 does not have any dust issues as reported on it's predecessor Nikon D600. The Nikon D610 takes great pictures. It has several scene modes that are pre-set settings for most situations. The night scene settings takes outstanding photographs at night by just a touch of a button. The dusk to dawn settings are takes unbelievably great scene photograph of sunset or sunrise. The controls are pretty much the same as the Nikon D80 I have which I like very much. For those who owns Nikon cameras in the like of D80, D90, D7000 will have no trouble learning the settings of the Nikon D610. It is also great that the Nikon D610 accepts two SD memory cards. This feature is so handy as I save my still photographs in one memory card while I save the video in another memory card. The Nikon D610 have raw pictures capability that allows you to capture a lossless image that can be later adjusted using your personal computer. The Nikon D610 has a fast shutter and quieter than my Canon 60D. At first I was thinking of Nikon D800E but the Nikon D610 costs about $1000 less. I was glad I opted for the Nikon D610 because for the price of a Nikon D800E body only, I now have a Nikon 28-300mm AVR lens together with the Nikon D610 body.

This camera is fantastic. I went in to replace my old crop sensor camera and was suggested to step up to the Nikon D600 but recently replaced that with the D610 and am very pleased. It shoots at amazing rates and the picture quality is amazing. It's fantastic with all of y FX lenses. The live view is convenient but my only use for it would be awkward shots and those are only easy with a screen that tilts. The camera is large if you're used to having a crop sensor but amazingly small for people who use full frames. Best buy does amazing with warranties and offers a cleaning which I highly suggest getting! Already saved me on the d600 fiasco. I use my D610 as a hobbyist and I love it. Lightroom has recently updated to support the raw formatting which makes working with my shots pain free. Favorite lens on it is my 50mm/F1.4. I've also got a wide angle and a telephoto and with the three lenses and the D610, I'm unstoppable!!!!

I have been shooting DX since the D70 was released. I went from a D70 to a D90 and then a D7100. My first entry into the Full Frame world was a Canon 6D. An excellent camera camera but I just could not get over the lack of a built in flash. I switched to the D610 an have been extremely pleased. The image quality is remarkable. My D7100 images were sharp but the D610 appears (to me at least) as sharp if not more using good glass. The main reason I upgraded was for low light. I will say this, If low/available light photography is not very important, stick with a D7100 and spend the extra money on good glass. The other reason I switched was for a greater selection of quality wide angle lenses for FX vs DX. I'm very happy and I think even with newer models like the D750 arriving, the D610 still holds it's own quite comfortably for the money.