D700 Grease spots on sensor.

Merc

Merc

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Mark
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Anyone else had a problem with spots of grease on their sensors?

This is just a small part of the image:gag:

n4bmo3.jpg


I used a rocket blower thinking it was dust but they wouldn't shift. Was going to clean it myself but when i took this picture and saw that there were over 60 spots that wouldn't budge i decided to put it into L.C.E. for a sensor clean. They phoned and said it was very bad and would take longer to clean due to it being grease/sillicone.

L.C.E. (Who i didn't buy it from so have no reason to lie) said it is more common on Cannon 5D's and have only ever had 1 D700 in a similar state.

Phoned Jessops who i bought it from and they phoned Nikon who surprise, surprise said they'd never heard of it before.

I'm guessing it is lubricant from Shutter/mirror but surely there shouldn't be this much?

Just wondered if anyone else has had a similar problem?

Regards.

Mark.

BTW Camera is 6 months old with about 4,000 actuations.
 
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U wouldnt chance remember if they were referring the 5d mark1 or 2 would you?
 
Thats bad, must be oil from the mirror/shutter mechanism, looks like thin RC shock oil spots, or light machine oil
 
Not seen anything like that on my two D700's, will give them a proper check tomorrow though. If it is grease/oil can you not ask Nikon to clean it under warranty if the report says that's what the problem is?
 
i would have thought the vibration used for sensor cleaning/(LP filter really) to be insufficient for getting rid of sticky stuff-like grease/silicone.

Anyway, Sorry to hear about your sensor. so will LCE be able to do a complete clean and will they be able to fix the cause? or will you have to send it into nikon?
 
Wow, that's bad...I suspect that would continue to happen as the same mechanism must still be flinging oil as soon as you get it back!

Hmmm...if you sell it can you tell us where it goes as a trade in so we don't buy it! :)


Just out of interest where are the pics? Its not Dubai or something is it? I lived/worked there and it gets incrediably hot. Over 60c in a car...just wondering if it affected the oil? (it was also the worst place ever for arborne dust).
 
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Rob 80386 said:
Thats bad, must be oil from the mirror/shutter mechanism, looks like thin RC shock oil spots, or light machine oil
Click to expand...

That's what i'm thinking.

AliB said:
Not seen anything like that on my two D700's, will give them a proper check tomorrow though. If it is grease/oil can you not ask Nikon to clean it under warranty if the report says that's what the problem is?
Click to expand...

Nikon have said they want to see it but if i send it to them it will be a 2-3 week turnaround. So have paid L.C.E. £40 which i think is a good price. If it happens again then i'll send it back to Nikon asking them to sort it once and for all. I'm hoping the excess is now gone but knowing my luck........

macro_man said:
i would have thought the vibration used for sensor cleaning/(LP filter really) to be insufficient for getting rid of sticky stuff-like grease/silicone.

Anyway, Sorry to hear about your sensor. so will LCE be able to do a complete clean and will they be able to fix the cause? or will you have to send it into nikon?
Click to expand...

L.C.E. Have said they can totally clean it so fingers crossed.
 
BlackCloud said:
Wow, that's bad...I suspect that would continue to happen as the same mechanism must still be flinging oil as soon as you get it back!

Hmmm...if you sell it can you tell us where it goes as a trade in so we don't buy it! :)


Just out of interest where are the pics? Its not Dubai or something is it? I lived/worked there and it gets incrediably hot. Over 60c in a car...just wondering if it affected the oil? (it was also the worst place ever for arborne dust).
Click to expand...

No it's the Spinnaker tower at Portsmouth.

Unedited pic

a4y347.jpg
 
My D700 does seem to get a lot more dust in it than my D300 and D2XS ever did.

Once I was blowing dust off my D300 and all of a sudden, seemingly from nowhere, it looked like someone had spat on the sensor! A splattering of grease particles, some large some small.

Either there was a production byproduct inside the Rocket Blower (it was brand new at the time), or, I blew some grease out from around the sensor.

I've always been real careful with my RocketBlower since, and usually use a lens pen instead. That's what I used to clean that mess up, and it works real well.
 
They have said (For obvious reasons) that it is more apparent on FX sensors I never had this problem on any aps-c sensors.

The rocket blower was used after this image.
 
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Actually I'm not sure if it is obvious to me! Is it simply because they are bigger on FX? Other than that I may have missed the point why they are more obvious on FX?

Didn't Nikon do some clever trickery with the mirror mechanism on the D700 to shoehorn it into the shared D300 body? May be something in the design.
 
BlackCloud said:
Actually I'm not sure if it is obvious to me! Is it simply because they are bigger on FX? Other than that I may have missed the point why they are more obvious on FX?
Click to expand...

It's a larger surface area. There's more sensor on which dust can collect. :)
 
The exact same thing happened to my D700.

I bought it in January, took it on a 3 month vacation. In San Francisco, I noticed really heavy spotting on one of my photos. After close inspection of my previous shots, they were all over the place, mostly covering the top half of the frame. It was obvious that they were not dust. I had not changed lenses (I use only one lens on this body, a telephoto on my D90) so there was no reason for dust to get on to the sensor. They looked like dark liquid. The bigger ones looked like a doughnut, semi-clear in the center surrounded by a dark think ring. Since I was away from home, I called around and found a Borrowlenses.com nearby who said they could clean it in one hour.

The technician told me that it was the most difficult cleaning job he had ever done with, what looked like a piece of metal stuck on one of the splotches.

It happened around around 4,000 activations. I'm up to 6,000+ now but it hasn't recurred. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
 
Not had it on my D700 but did have almost exactly the same thing on my D200. Managed to smear them all over the sensor with a SensorKlear then a wet clean failed to shift them too. Had a last ditch try with a new SensorKlear and that shifted the smear that the wet clean had left behind.

Touch wood, the dust shifting function on my D700 has kept the sensor pretty much dust free and I rarely drop below f/11 (go much smaller and diffraction kicks in) so I haven't even needed to rocket blow it yet (18 months so far). I do make sure that the body's held down on a firm surface when I run the clean cycle - as per the manual's advice.
 
Had this on my D3 when I first bought it, went straight back to Nikon who cleaned it, though it did come back looking worse than when it went in, so had to send it back again. In the first two months of owning it Nikon had it longer than I did, but it eventually came back spotlessly clean. Apparently certain batches had problems with too much oil on the mirror mechanism.
 
This makes sense to me now. I have noticed far more dust than on my D80 and was told the same re: FX showing it more which makes sense. Onl trouble was when I went beyond the dust blower and used my arctic butterfly it seemed to smear oil across the whoel sensor. Does not show up up to f16 but I know it`s there and might have to pay out for a sensor clean or decide whether to risk doing it myself. Might call Nikon and see what they say
 
Leroy,

May I ask what do you mean by "The spots have been exaggerated"?

Also, there seems to be a lot of oily spots and dust in there :shrug:. Oily spots, I can understand, coming from the various mechanics of the internals (either lens or body, or both), but the dust, are you certain there's no one playing with this other than you?

I don't mean to be rude in my question, sorry if I come off as sounding anything like that, but this is a horrible situation to be in. That sensor is totally unacceptable, and for it to be recurring so early makes me wonder what's going on.
 
Sorry, what I meant was I enhanced the spots in Lightroom and the image is cropped to 1/4 (top left quadrant) of the image, meaning bottom right of the sensor, I guess.

What looks like dust could be birds in the distance. The lens rarely comes off so I doubt there's much dust in there.

Thanks for asking.
 
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