Nikon Releases D3 and D300

[teardr0p1204]

Check out these preview!

Nikon D3
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d3.htm
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0708/07082312nikond3.asp

Nikon D300
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0708/07082313nikond300.asp

And some new lenses too...
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0708/07...4-70lenses.asp

I can only *drool* at these babies!!!

I can't wait til November! :-)

[studio206]

lol Nikon finally came out with a full-frame camera o.O that's awesome!! even though i don't use Nikon it's still cool to see them coming out with a full-frame chip ^_^ now all the Nikon ppl can stop b**chin' :-P lol jk jk but i do think it's cool they have a full-frame chip now ^_^ now all we need is for the other companies to come out with one too :-)

[Hikariphoto]

Other companies? What other companies? Pentax? Good luck. Poor Pentax probably won't last much longer. Olympus, Minolta, all gone from the D-SLR world. Canon and Nikon are it. I'm not sure even these new bodies are enough to preserve the pro ranks for Nikon. It'll be very very interesting to read the reviews and actually see images from these new cameras, since Nikon has never been able to compete with Canon in file cleanness and high-ISO performance; if they've managed to do that, then they'll be ok. But if there's a noise problem or a major screw-up like the Leica M8 debacle, it'll be really really ugly for Nikon.

Sports people will continue to shoot Nikon, and PJers, but most of the wedding and portrait pros I know who are Nikonites have either moved to Canon or have ditched their Nikon bodies in favor of the Fujis. One guy sold his D2X in order to buy two old refurbished S2s because the Nikon's white balance was all over the board and the image quality of the S2 is so far superior to the Nikon. I hope that Nikon's finally gotten it right.

[studio206]

yeah true true o.O good points. but i thought Olympus n' Sony/Minolta just came out with new DSLR's as well as Pentax o.O and Kodak putting out a new Pro SLR as well as Fujifilm... however, i doubt at this point any of them can even touch Canon n' Nikon... unless you want to spend 20-30K on a Hasselblad or Mamiya digital body lol

btw... doesn't most of the sport industry use canon o.O i know the NFL and Soccer does for sure

[Hikariphoto]

yeah true true o.O good points. but i thought Olympus n' Sony/Minolta just came out with new DSLR's as well as Pentax o.O and Kodak putting out a new Pro SLR as well as Fujifilm... however, i doubt at this point any of them can even touch Canon n' Nikon... unless you want to spend 20-30K on a Hasselblad or Mamiya digital body lol

btw... doesn't most of the sport industry use canon o.O i know the NFL and Soccer does for sure

ha. The NFL, in its eternal quest for more money (it's not about the game, it's about the business) has decreed that all photographers will wear Canon logos, whether they shoot Canon or not. All the professional sports photogs I know are up in arms about that, including the ones who do shoot Canon.

And to be honest, even Hassie and Mamiya can't touch Canon for image quality; the only benefit, really, of shooting medium format is the enlargement factor in film. Meaning, of course, the less you have to enlarge something, the better the quality of the print is. The high-MP and high-quality chips out there now in the FF D-SLRs are, for the most part, equal to or better than anything out there in the MF world. Otherwise you'd see a lot more pros shooting MF backs. After all, $10K for a 30-MP back for a Hasselblad is a lot cheaper than selling off $100K worth of kit for pennies on the dollar and buying an entirely new line of camera gear.

The Sony looks pretty ok, but the problem with the Sony is that is has no track record, so the pros aren't going to pick it up. maybe in 20 years when there's a whole new crop of pros, but not now. And Sony has been the perperator of Nikon's sensors for a long time now, resulting in the high-noise, low-ISO chips against which Nikon shooters have been rebelling.

Fuji's cameras are all built on nikon bodies -- the S5 is a D200 body with a good chip in it -- and so they take Nikon lenses and flashes and stuff, so it's a good thing. Nikon's problem in the past has been that they have been incapable of producing a chip that can compete with the Canon for high-ISO performance and clean images, and Canon always takes the hit for ergonomics and perceived build quality.

With most of the pros I know, the image quality is more important that where the dials are and whether you have Auto-ISO, so Canon is beating the pants off Nikon in the pro arena. Hence the release of so many low-end Nikons; the D80, D40 and D50 are clearly aimed at the consumer-grade shooter. In fact, anything that takes only SD cards is, IMHO, aimed directly at the consumer shooter, because SD cards aren't as tough as CF cards and I sure as heck wouldn't use them, since they're too small and I'd be constantly terrified I'd lose one.

This to me has indicated that Nikon has conceded the pro ranks to Canon, and I think that the release of these two new cameras is Nikon's last chance to retain pros. Photographers being fickle, if the D300 and D3 still have poor high-ISO noise issues, uneven white balance, and so on, I think there will be an even faster mass exodus to Canon, and Nikon will go the way of Pentax, being forced to just try to hold its own in a shrinking marketplace.

[studio206]

I definitely agree. The bit about Fuji, their problem is because they buy from Nikon for their bodies... I believe that if Fuji started to develop their own bodies or at lease buy from someone else, they would be much better off.

My question is do you believe that pretty soon all the cameras will switch to a full-frame chip? and do you think that the APS chips will soon become obsolete like APS film? Seriously, APS film was so bad lol I hate whenever I get a roll of it in at my job. but I ask this because it seems like every year the MP on these cameras are going up and pretty soon i feel that an APS chips just wont cut it

[Hikariphoto]

I dunno about Fuji. It's a completely different chip, and the D200 body is a nice body. It feels good in the hands, and performs well enough. The Fuji chip and firmware are great, and the dynamic range and auto white balance of the Fuji products are better than the Nikons. Nikon gets to sell more bodies, while Fuji stays in the game.

The comparison between APS sensors and APS film isn't really relevant. Like they say, size really doesn't matter. APS film is dependent upon the quality of the emulsion, how it's been stored, how clueless the idiot running the minilab is when processing it, the ISO of the film, and so much else, while sensors tend to be much more consistent. And the smaller APS format doesn't enlarge as well, because it's, well, smaller. Remember Kodak Disc film? The crappy pictures that came out of that? Ugh.

MP is really overrated, to a point. It's really the lens that counts; the body and chip, yeah they do matter, but the lens is the important thing. If you're going to sink money into anything, buy lenses, the best you can afford. A good lens is worth its weight in gold; if I had to choose between a lower-MP body and a great lens or a high-MP body and a mediocre lens, I would take a 10D and a good lens over a 30D and a poor one any day.

I think that eventually, sure, most cameras will be FF, but my preference is to have one of each. FF is GREAT if you have a wide-angle lens, because the beautiful things about crop-factor cameras are two-fold: first, wide-angle lenses have become much cheaper, better quality, and more widely available, and second, longer lenses have more reach.

I do think you're right that the APS size chip's limits in how many pixels can be physically crammed onto the chip will soon be reached, but, there may well be a different sort of photoreceptor arrangement by that time -- the Sigma Foveon chip comes readily to mind; I think that was an idea ahead of its time and ahead of available technology.

[Ronald S. Jr.]

What I like is how all the Noink shooters were saying how useless a FF chip is, and that 1.5x is fine. They'd "never" buy a FF camera. Yeah...wait and see. Those D3's will be FLYING off the shelf.

[Hikariphoto]

yeah well that was just penis envy.

[teardr0p1204]

funny how debate between nikon and canon is almost always similar in every forum. :-) i do think both are good brands, especially if you have enough to buy the pro lenses (the L lenses for canon and the VR and AFS lenses for Nikon). I've had to shift to Nikon recently because of work and I have been really happy with the output. I guess the upgrade from a 350D body+24-70 lens to a D200+17-55 2.8 lens was really worth it for me because it had made my workflow so much quicker. I can't wait to get my hands on the D3 though (i love full frame!) if only i could afford a 5D, i wouldn't have switched :-) but don't you think cropped sensors are still so much nicer for portraiture than full frame? :-)