closing this, we had this topic before with both d700 and d3. 30 quids is a decent, standard price for cleaning full frame sensor.

And YES I AM talking to a very good claims lawyer about the possibility of raising a class action against the company...

So watch out next time you post boys ... a little thing called 'discovery' may well uncover your identities in the months to come.

And I have every intention of finding out which PR company is being paid to post online comments challenging the issue in a bid to try and keep it under wraps...

I would have to +1 on DutchNikon's comment. Do you know for sure it is oil because I would think it is highly unlikely unless you sprayed it on there yourself. Maybe you should buy a Canon though and possibly drop it out of the plane :)

Hmm, How do you now its oil, and not Dust ?

All camera's with removable lenses are prone to get Dust or other stuff at the filter in front of the sensor, that's when the "Sensor cleaning" procedure gets into play ...

If you've done "Sky-diving pics, there is also the possibility of having condense residu in your camera, since you jump out of a relatively warm airplane into the ( often very ) cold air, and air cooling down rapidily results often into condense, hence the risk of condencesation in the camera interrior. Some ppl i know use a "underwater housing" to slow down / eliminate this effect when skydiving....

All this ( dust , condense residu, etc.) does not render a camera "useless" , it just requires standard maintenance i think...

Just my 2 cents..

My Nikon D700 is 6 months old and has had the same (new) lens on it since it came out of the box ( and it's never been taken off )

I've just photographed some people skydiving ( from the ground looking up ) and got home to find a series of grey dots splattered all over an otherwise clear blue sky - a quarter of the frame looks like it has measles.

I e-mailed Nikon's service department ( and sent an example image ) and they offered to charge me £30 to clean the sensor.

Thank you Nikon for selling cameras with a manufacturing and design issue that render them virtually useless ( and a serious liability in commercial terms ) and then asking customers to pay for sorting them out whilst they are still under warranty.

Not sure of the facts? Type 'oil' and 'Nikon sensor' into Google and see how many people have encountered the same problem.