Both Nikon D7100 and Nikon D600 have 24.0 MP resolution sensors but Nikon D7100's sensor is APS-C (23.5 x 15.6 mm ) and Nikon D600's sensor is Full frame (35.9 x 24 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.
Another difference between these two cameras is that Nikon D7100's sensor lacks 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 D7100 and D600 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
DxOMark is a benchmark that scientifically assesses image quality of camera sensors. It 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. Nikon D7100 and Nikon D600 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that D600 has a better overall score of 94, 11 points higher compared to D7100's score of 83.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Nikon D7100 |
83 |
24.2 bits |
13.7 Evs |
1256 ISO |
Nikon D600 |
94 |
25.1 bits |
14.2 Evs |
2980 ISO |