Both Nikon D600 and Nikon D7100 have 24.0 MP resolution sensors but Nikon D600's sensor is Full frame (35.9 x 24 mm ) and Nikon D7100's sensor is APS-C (23.5 x 15.6 mm ).
Since Nikon D600's has a larger sensor area with the same resolution, this means that it also has a larger pixel area hence better light collecting capacity for a given aperture compared to Nikon D7100.
One other difference between these two cameras that is worth mentioning is that Nikon D7100's sensor doesn't have an anti-alias (Low-Pass) filter. Removing anti-alias filter increases the sharpness and level of detail but at the same time, it increases the chance of moiré occurring in certain scenes.
Below you can see the D600 and D7100 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Nikon D600 has a 2.4x Larger sensor area than Nikon D7100. Larger sensors give photographer more control on the depth of field and blurry background compared to smaller sensor when shot in same focal length and aperture.
DxOMark Sensor Scores
Both Nikon D600 and Nikon D7100 sensors have been tested by DxoMark. DxoMark scores camera sensors for color depth (DXO Portrait), dynamic range (DXO Landscape) and low-light sensitivity (DXO Sports), and also gives them an overall score. Of the two cameras that we are comparing, D600 has scored 94, 11 points higher than D7100.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Nikon D600 |
94 |
25.1 bits |
14.2 Evs |
2980 ISO |
Nikon D7100 |
83 |
24.2 bits |
13.7 Evs |
1256 ISO |