The NEX-5 is Sony’s first attempt at a mirror-less camera with interchangeable lenses. A very good attempt too, and its even smaller than my Panasonic GF1 even though it has a bigger sensor and articulated screen.
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Nikon 18-55mm VR lens
November 20, 2007 – 11:35 am
Nikon has performed a veritable U-turn and announced its newest standard range zoom lens will have VR image stabilisation. The precisely name AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR is the first lens announced after their new AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED, which doesn’t have VR as Nikon believed that VR wasn’t required on short zooms.
However, the success of in-body sensor stabilisation from the likes of Pentax, Sony and Olympus, and the new, cheap kit lens from Canon with IS probably forced Nikon’s hand to compete with a cheap VR zoom. This new lens combined with the 55-200mm VR lens would make a good stabilised zoom kit on a budget.
Nikon D3 and D300
August 23, 2007 – 11:08 am
Amidst a lot of fanfare Nikon launches their new flagship camera, the D3 — its replacement for the venerable D2xs, and the D300 — the replacement for the incredibly popular D200.
A couple days ago, Canon upped the ante with their new EOS 40D, fixing the major complaints with the 30D and then one-upping the D200 on image quality as well. However Nikon kept smug about their plans, they didn’t rush any press releases about a mythical forthcoming camera to try to up-stage the Canon announcement like Sony did, and after all this time we knew they had something big in store.
D3
The D3 is the first Nikon DSLR to have a full-frame sensor (or FX as Nikon calls it). Its a 12.1 megapixel sensor, which on the face of it might not be much competition for the likes of the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III’s 21.1 megapixel sensor, but the lower pixel density should produce less noise at the higher ISO ranges, especially as the D3 offers a ISO25600 boost range.
Noteworthy points:
- 12.1 megapixel full-frame sensor.
- ISO6400 native, and upto ISO25600 boost.
- 9 frames-per-second — faster than the old D2hs with a 4 megapixel sensor.
- New auto-focus system — CAM3500 with 51 focus points, 15 cross-hatched.
- 14-bit A/D converter — should give better tonality.
- 3 inch LCD with Live Preview — has very high VGA resolution which should make Live Preview quite useful.
D300
The D300 is the replacement for the D200, a camera that sold far better than Nikon ever hoped for. This isn’t without reason, the D200 is a fantastic camera, it beat off the competition — mainly from the Canon 30D — with ease, only loosing out with noise levels at high ISOs, but the build quality and design of the D200 were second to none. The D300 has big shoes to fill, made even bigger by the new Canon 40D which made the D200 less competitive. But my, if Nikon have finally managed to solve the high ISO issue, it should beat the competition out of the water.
Noteworthy points:
- 12.1 megapixel DX sensor.
- ISO 3200 now native, and ISO 6400 with boost.
- 14-bit A/D converter.
- Blisteringly fast 8 frames-per-second with the grip, or 6 frames-per-second grip-less.
- Same 3 inch LCD with Live Preview as the D3 — nice.
- Same auto-focus system as the D3 — very nice, the auto-focus of the D200 was often found lacking.
Competition
Nikon have finally made a professional DSLR body that can compete with Canon, if purely down to the fact that its full frame. The D2 series had issues with high ISO noise, something which Canon were always good at. Hopefully with a new image processor, and now noise reduction being applied at the sensor level instead of in post-processing, we should see Nikon catch up to Canon in that respect.
I’ll reserve final judgement until we have sample images, but I’m very hopeful that Nikon have got it right this time.
Sigma Boosts HSM Lens Range
July 25, 2007 – 1:39 pm
Sigma have added HSM focusing (AF-S) to their 18-50mm f/2.8 and 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 lenses, making them compatible with the Nikon D40 and D40x auto-focusing and also have full time manual focusing override.
Considering theses are optically very close to my prized Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8, this is a very good move by Sigma.
No new Nikon D3 annoucement at PMA
March 7, 2007 – 3:56 pm
Looks like Nikon’s not going to release a successor to the D2 line at PMA this year.
Nikon D40x and 55-200mm VR lens
March 6, 2007 – 3:18 pm
The first big official Nikon announcements for PMA have been made, both of which are upgrades on existing products rather than out and out new ones. A D40 DSLR upgrade and a 55-200mm lens upgrade.
D40x
The new D40x is exactly the same as the old D40 except it now contains the sensor and processing engine of the D80. This means it now has a 10.2 mega-pixel sensor as predicted, and a slightly faster 3 FPS burst rate.
Ken Rockwell will get his hands on a D40x this Wednesday, so I’m going to have to speculate on it’s performance based on what we’ve seen so far with Nikon’s cameras.
I suspect it’ll have the same image quality as the D80 and D200. If you take a shot of the same thing with the same settings and same lens with all three cameras, you’ll get exactly the same output. However I expect the D40x will retain the old D40′s 420-segment Matrix metering rather than the D80′s 1005-segment version, although the difference in metering will be minimal. Both the D80 and D40 over-expose images compared to the D200 and the D40x will be similar to the D40 and D80.
As it’ll have the same output as the D80 and D200, it should have the same high-sensitivity noise performance too, which is a great shame. The best thing about the D40 was the super-clean ISO1600 shots it produced. This made it a great indoor or night-time camera, especially when in tandem with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens, which will even auto focus with it as it’s HSM. The D80 and D200 have pretty average high-ISO noise performance, and I wouldn’t personally use it at ISO1600 if I could avoid it.
What I suspect Nikon is doing is to set a low price DSLR to compete against the higher priced but similar mega-pixel count Canon, Pentax and Sony alternatives. Most consumers will mainly look at the mega-pixel number to decide which camera to buy, and when you can get a D40x with 10 mega-pixels for a significant amount less than a Canon 400D, if I was an uninformed consumer I know which one I would go for.
But this is not to say you’ll be disappointed with the images from the D40x. The D80 and D200 produce superb low ISO pictures, and the extra pixels will allow you to crop a bit more. Nikon have posted some samples of the D40x and they do look very encouraging.
55-200mm VR
The most interesting thing about the D40x samples however, is that most of them are taken with the new 55-200mm VR lens. This is Nikon’s first consumer VR lens1 with a US list prices of $249.952 it’s a very cheap lens aimed squarely at consumers. But if you look at the samples taken with the D40x, you could be fooled into thinking it was the 70-300mm VR, or even the 70-200mm VR lens which costs many times more.
This lens seems to be a fantastic light travel-zoom to compliment heavier and faster zoom lenses. It has the sharpness and VR, which helps a bit with the small aperture, and it only weighs 335g. While a 18-200mm VR would be more convenient, it seems the 55-200mm trounces that lens at the long end, where it still remains very sharp.
There is still some confusion over the specifications though. It’s not specified whether it’s a VR or VRII, although it’s probably just VR. One Nikon site specifies it with a seven-bladed aperture, but on another it has a nine-bladed aperture. Also, the old 55-200mm lens didn’t have real AF-S capabilities. Instead of having a ring type motor directly rotating a floating lens element, it just had a normal motor like that driven by old screw AF-D type lenses, except this was built into the lens body. This meant it was pretty silent at focusing, but was slow and didn’t have full-time manual over-ride like that of real AF-S lenses. I suspect this is still the fake AF-S.
I await Ken Rockwell’s review as that should clear up any ambiguity with this lens, and also give us some sample shots not taken by Nikon.
Ken Rockwell: Nikon D40x and 50-200mm VR on Wednesday
March 5, 2007 – 11:10 pm
Ken Rockwell claims that he’s receiving a Nikon D40x with the 10 mega—pixel sensor and a 55-200mm VR lens on Wednesday.
Update: this has been confirmed by Nikon.
Nikon D3 announced
March 3, 2007 – 9:21 pm
Jim Seaholm has posted on the photo.net forums that he attended a Nikon sales rep seminar where the D3 was announced:
Full Frame (no 1.1 crap) – DX mode at 1.5x – High Speed Crop – VERY fast motor drive (can’t remember the number he quoted, but when he fired it, it sounded at least as fast as my F5 on CH. – 18.7 MB – MSRP $7999 – No H and X models anymore, just the one D3.
The camera was fitted with another new release: an undisguised 50mm 1.2G AF-S lens, which looked to be quite large and sturdy. Also mentioned but not present was a 24-120 2.8G AF-S. The rep said no new DX lenses were forthcoming in the near future.
Pictures and full specifications are to be announced on Monday, so more to follow then.
Nikon at PMA predictions
March 1, 2007 – 8:06 pm
Here are my predictions for Nikon’s new product announcements at PMA in a few days. They are based speculation, rumours and logic only; I have no proof whatsoever. But still.
Cameras
- D3 — The long awaited replacement for the D2h/D2x line—up of professional cameras, set to compete against Canon’s new EOS-1D Mark III. Should be 10 mega—pixels, 10 FPS, 1.1x crop factor sensor and improvements in the AF engine.
- D60 — This will fill the gap created by the D40 when it replaced the D50. The D40 doesn’t feature a body AF motor, so it wont auto—focus with many current and older AF-D type lenses. The D60 will feature the D40 body with a 10.2 mega—pixel sensor from the D200 and D80 with an AF sensor shoe—horned on. It’s feature set will include some other improvements but not enough to compete with the D80.
- D200s — The D200 has been a huge success for Nikon, beating Canon’s 30D on price, features and sales. An upgrade to the D200 to feature the sensor and AF system from the defunct D2x would be a very welcome addition and would tempt many nature and sports photographers to upgrade just for the D2x’s excellent AF system.
Lenses
The majority of the new lens announcements will be for older designs to be upgraded with AF-S and VR. I predict that some, if not all of the following lenses will receive that treatment:
- 28mm f/1.4 AF-S
- 50mm f/1.4 AF-S VR
- 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 AF-S VR
- 85mm f/1.4 AF-S VR
- 300mm f/4 AF-S VR
- 400mm f/2.8 AF-S VR
- 500mm f/4 AF-S VR
- 600mm f/4 AF-S VR
There will be some new lenses to fill gaps currently being filled by their competitors (Sigma et al):
- 17-70mm f/2.8 AF-S VR DX
- 20mm f/1.4 AF-S
- 28-105mm f/2.8 AF-S VR
- 30mm f/1.4 AF-S VR DX
- 100-300mm f/4 AF-S VR
- 400mm f/5.6 AF-S VR
- 400-600mm f/5.6 AF-S VR
And finally if Nikon feel very generous and want to bring their budget/consumer lenses into the modern era:
- 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-S VR
- 50mm f/1.8 AF-S VR
- 85mm f/1.8 AF-S VR
Honestly, I’d be surprised if even 20% of what I predicted gets released, and I certainly don’t hope for Nikon to replace all their lenses with updated versions in one go, but hopefully before the next PMA the majority will be on their way out.
Rumours of Nikon D3
February 28, 2007 – 11:04 am
There’s been a flurry of activity in the Nikon camp about it’s answer to Canon’s new EOS-1D Mark III, the rumoured D3. Over on the Nikonians forum, jrp posted his new prediction:
Reports of a full frame (1.1X sensor) prototype being tested were getting stale; however, with apologies for the delay, our intelligence sources in the heart of Japan have confirmed it:
New Model denomination: D3, most likely D3H Sensor Manufacturer: Either Sony (most likely) or Nikon Megapixel rating: in the 18MP to 20MP range Expected announcement date: March 2007, at PMA Likely availability in store shelves around the world: October 2007 Surprise Feature: DX format high FPS rate High Speed Crop Mode
Which strangely enough matches what jeff-c on the DPReview forums said a year ago about 1.1x crop factor sensors.
It does seem likely we’ll be getting full-frame or near full-frame sensors with the D3, otherwise a lot of people will be dissapointed and Nikon would risk having people jump ship to Canon and their rumoured update to the EOS-1Ds.
Personally I’m quite happy with DX size (1.5x crop-factor), especially as I’ve invested in a reasonable amount of DX lenses and the extra reach it gives me with my longer lenses.
This seems like it’s going to be one hell of a PMA convention, Nikon, Canon and Olympus are updating their professional line-up with new cameras and lenses expected by all.
Canon announces EOS-1D Mark III
February 22, 2007 – 1:52 pm
Canon’s new EOS-1D Mark III is another evolutionary rather than revolution update for Canon users. While the new auto-focusing system and 10 mega-pixel at 10 frames per second sensor is pretty neat, they’re just updates from the Mark II’s already good auto-focusing and eight MP at eight FPS sensor.
Still, even the Mark II beats Nikon’s D2Hs’ four MP at eight FPS, Nikon need something big with the rumoured D3H and D3X.
Photography is an expensive hobby
January 6, 2007 – 1:38 am
I almost spent £400 on a Nikon 18-200mm VR lens today, but I was beaten to it. I’m still not sure whether that was a good or bad thing…
Nikon D80 scoop
July 28, 2006 – 9:08 am
Looks like Ken has the latest scoop on the Nikon D70′s successor, the inspiringly named D80. It’s features include the D200‘s 10MP sensor, 4.5 FPS rate and using SD cards rather than Compact Flash.
The rumoured $899 asking price would put it around £500-600 in the UK. Budget D200 anyone?
Update: DPReview have gotten their hands on a D80 for a preview. It seems it will cost £699 body-only in the UK.