December 1, 2008 – 2:01 pm
Nikon announced it’s worst kept secret today, the D3X, with a whopping MSRP of £5,499.
Nikon is effectively charging £3,000 for a sensor with 12 million more pixels that costs no more to make than the standard D3 sensor.
They have this completely wrong.
The market doesn’t want another professional level DSLR with a price tag to match, what’s needed now is something like Canon’s 5D Mark II, which with 21 megapixels and costing under £1,750, seems like a comparative bargain.
Even if Nikon did make a D700X with this new sensor, would it have the same £3000 price premium over the D700, as the new parts would be the same as the D3x.
It seems Nikon have priced itself out of contention.
August 20, 2007 – 11:42 am
August 19, 2007 – 11:46 am
Amazon have leaked details about the upcoming Canon 40D and 1Ds Mark III. I’ve saved screenshots of the 1Ds Mark III and 40D pages as they’re sure to take them down. Note that they’re both nearly 1MB in file size.
1Ds Mark III (screenshot):
- 21.1-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor
- Large 3.0-inch LCD display with Live View and seven brightness settings
- 5 fps at shutter speeds 1/500 second or faster (for bursts of up to 45 Large/Fine JPEGs or 15 RAW images)
40D (screenshot):
- 10.1-megapixel CMOS sensor
- Large 3.0-inch LCD display with enhanced Live View and broadened color gamut
- 6.5 frame-per-second continuous shooting capability (for bursts of up to 75 Large/Fine JPEGs or 17 RAW images)
Details of a new Canon 14mm prime have also been leaked by Amazon (screenshot), which looks to have been specifically designed for the 1Ds Mark III.
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.
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.
