Nikon D400!! Myth? Whats your opinion?

schumionbike · Mar 31, 2009

I agree with Garb, I think the D400 will come out the same time as the D4 and that won't be for at least another year. I think the learning curve has slow down for digital camera so I wouldn't expect huge improvement from year to year. The gap between the D2H and the D3 was actually pretty long. The gap between the D100 and D200 and D300 were shorter but notice that all those camera came out after the D1, D2H, and D3 respectively. It took 4 years after the introduction of the D1 to get a D100 for the serious amateur.

adamwilliamking · Mar 31, 2009

Garbz said:
Take that into account and you'll realise that the Pro / Prosumer line does not receive a yearly upgrade. In fact expect to wait at least another 1 to 2 years before D4s start being talked aboutl

Yeah this is correct, Nikon has always had an average 18-24 month product cycle. Not sure where anyone got the 1 year idea. 18 months at the absolute least before you'll see a camera aimed towards the same market.

Pure · Mar 31, 2009

probably fake, but...

Rumor: Nikon D400 DSLR Surfaces on Nikon Germany Site With 15.3MP Sensor, Full HD Video

erotavlas · Apr 2, 2009

damn, why does this have to be so confusing? What's the point of having all these camera versions, either you take good pictures or you don't. When are people going to stop and realize its not all about the camera body? I'm not a pro. anything but all I can say is that before all this digital I had a good camera body that lasted for many years and I only had to change the film or lenses...and even those didn't seem to change as fast as the cameras do today. Personally I find it a waste of materials, resources, and time to go through so many camera bodies. They should create a few great bodies and make them upgradable (i.e. sensors, chips, like on a computer) :headbang:

JerryPH · Apr 2, 2009

erotavlas said:
damn, why does this have to be so confusing? What's the point of having all these camera versions, either you take good pictures or you don't. When are people going to stop and realize its not all about the camera body?

The real questions are:
- when will people learn to recognize an april fool's joke a day late and...
- you're not Ken Rockwell's evil twin by any chance, are you?

:lol:

bdavis · Apr 3, 2009

Pure said:
probably fake, but...

Rumor: Nikon D400 DSLR Surfaces on Nikon Germany Site With 15.3MP Sensor, Full HD Video

Actually I dont believe that was fake....

adamwilliamking · Apr 3, 2009

I personally think that article was probably fake. They just regurgitated what the 500D is, and called it the D400. Nikon has a tendancy to try and 1 up Canon in this type of situation. At those specs there is absolutely no reason for anyone to upgrade from a 300 or even a 90.

And please don't say "Yeah, theres 1080p video" because a "photographer" is concerned with "photography".
And on that, have you seen the quality the of the D90's 720p? How can a company attempt 1080 when they butchered 720 last year? Man, I love Nikon but theres a reason why they stopped making video cameras like.. 20 years ago.

nikonpreap · Apr 3, 2009

and it will come with a button that will cure global warming and world hunger

JerryPH · Apr 4, 2009

Garbz said:
The D3 has 2 type II CF slots for either backup or faster card transfers, the D700 doesn't even support typeII CF cards. The D3 has a clear viewfinder with 100% coverage the D700 is cluttered with AF points and only 95%

I understand and agree with you for the most part, but things like support for Type II CF cards is not important. All the fastest card on the market are Type I CF cards like the SanDisk Extreme IV and Ducati. They are fast enough to exceed the D3's write speeds by a good 40% and one needs an external firewire card reader to benefit. A UDMA card is more important by far than a choice between a type I or type II CF card based on current technology. Also, many Type II or microdrives have moving parts inside and that to me means slower write speeds, things that wear out and items with a shorter lifespan vs solid state technologies. I would much rather drop a Type I into the salt water ocean compared to a microdrive... lol

As for a cluttered viewfinder, the D700 does have a 5% smaller screen, and this was necessary to be able to have a popup flash, a valuable tool for CLS users and something that the D3 doesn't have. Concerning the viewpoints... none of the very generous 51 focus points clutter the D700's anymore than on a D3, since none come even close to the edges of a D700 and are visually more centered or cluttered in the center, if you will, on a D3. I personally do not find the look cluttered at all.

Garbz said:
The D3 has 9-11fps max*, the D700 has 8fps max* (sport shooters take note). And finally the big kicker why the D700 will not cut into the D3 market for the pros, the shutter life is twice as long at 300k actuations.

- 11 FPS in DX mode only (which means the camera is writing photos at an underwhelming 5MP in size).

- In the real world, not many pros will consider the loss of 1 FPS a deal breaker at full FX mode of the D700s 8 vs D3's 9 FPS ratings, but it is a consideration that must be taken into account.

The additional costs associated with the D700 to get that 8FPS are indeed a battery grip, an EN-EL4a battery AND the EN-EL4 battery charger, and the battery and battery charger from Nikon are hellaciously overpriced. The nice thing is that for $50, one can purchase an EN-EL4a compatible battery WITH integrated charger from eBay. Does it perform as well as the originals? No, it gets about 2400 pics per charge instead of Nikon's 2500 (bit deal... lol)... but at a savings of over $325.

My MB-D10 cost me $199 and that eBay battery was $50. My 8FPS cost me $250 vs Nikon's MSRP of about $580 to get the 8FPS the Nikon way on a D700.

My base setup therefore, cost me $2425 vs the very desirable D3 at $4600. In other words, for a couple hundred dollars more, I could purchase a 2nd identical D700... and if I was a pro, now face the very interesting prospect of having 2 cameras (a spare and/or cameras with different lenses on them) for near the price of a D3 with no optical differences, and if I used both about equally, shutter life would no longer be an issue, but then again, all the other advantages of a D3 would no longer be there.

However, I would potentially have other advantages such as:
- no need for a camera mounted flash for CLS control
- the option to go grip-less for less weight to carry around
- a dust removal system on my *2* cameras

There are other advantages to the D3, and for the pro, the shutter life is critical indeed as are the slightly faster focus acquisition times, auto backup to 2 CF cards and all the other advantages and conveniences a D3 offers (which I honestly really love!).

Garbz said:
So if you consider a D700 + battery grip + D3 battery for optimal performance is more than 2/3rds the cost of the D3 but lasts only half as long, the D3 becomes a no-brainier for the pro who's life depends on photography, which lets face it is the target market for this camera.

I kinda blurred that line a little, but yes, there are some undeniable strong points why a professional would demand it and a D3 is the wiser choice.

Garbz said:
I also still doubt any D3 sales are lost to the D3x.

I would say that unless the purchaser did not do their homework (and one would HOPE that at this level, that is not possible), that the D3x did not cut into the D3's market at all. They share a few letters in the name, a familiar body, but performances so different as to be completely different cameras for different markets.

Garbz said:
It would be nice to have both, but I am sure people will think very carefully about which to buy.

I can live without the 50MB RAW files of a D3x, but then again, I am no pro... lol

Garbz said:
If anything in my opinion the D3x would probably have less appeal than the D3 for much of what SLRs were previously used.

For sure. While the D3x is a landscape or portrait photographer's dream, it is slower and noiser than a D3 which has greater general appeal and is generally considered more of the wedding photographer or PJ's dream camera.

Garbz · Apr 4, 2009

Hahahahh Jerry, Here I see myself multiquoted in such a large body of text and was getting ready to start an argument, only to find you agreed with most of the things I said. :hug:

Just a few clarifications:
- The TypeII CF cards don't matter until you're a pro upgrading from an earlier camera and have about 20 TypeII cards already. It really is a legacy thing. Do they even make them anymore?
- Yeah 11fps on a DX body, but then I knew a couple of sport photographers who used the high-speed crop feature on the D2(x or H I forget now), to get the extra fps too. It is something you can turn on in the D3. Again just an option for the few people who may need it.
- I doubt someone who's living depends on their gear considers ebay knockoffs a viable alternative than paying through the nose for Nikon accessories and then claiming it as a tax write-off.

All in all though the point is still the same. Nikon know what they are doing, and I find it laughable that random people think they know better than a company with years of experience at the very top of the industry. (not just related to this thread)

Actually completely offtopic: Only recently the local news had complaints about the bridge being duplicated in the city. Everyone seems to think 2x 6 lane bridges leading to a single 4 lane highway was a bad idea and complained to the council. Their reply was "Piss off, we know what we're doing, check the motorway upgrade plans for the next 10 years." The bridge takes 4 years to build, according to the plans in the 3rd year the motorway gets duplicated and widened. But no one is interested in actually thinking about looking into the future.

inTempus · Apr 4, 2009

Garbz said:
Canon are the ones who suffer verbal diarrhoea and then have issues with hype. Nikon say nothing, people guess because they have nothing better to do than salivate over the possibility that the company is still using their R&D budget, then a camera pops up from no where and everyone has issues with hype.

According to Gizmodo Nikon can't seem to keep a secret.

Even if it's a fake, the noise is starting to build, so there's likely something to the D400 whispers, since Nikon's not the best at keeping secrets.

I wish they all would leak more info... but then it would probably be disinformation to throw off competitors.

Canon really dropped the ball with the 50D hype regarding high ISO performance.

JerryPH · Apr 4, 2009

Garbz said:
Hahahahh Jerry, Here I see myself multiquoted in such a large body of text and was getting ready to start an argument, only to find you agreed with most of the things I said. :hug:

Not to argue, just to add to your post and add a few other things that added possible value and a slightly different perspective.

Garbz said:
Just a few clarifications:
- The TypeII CF cards don't matter until you're a pro upgrading from an earlier camera and have about 20 TypeII cards already. It really is a legacy thing. Do they even make them anymore?

Believe it or not, they still do, and these things are the biggest pieces of garbage out there. I happen to own one of them, and they are SLOW and I, as a pro (if I was one), would not put a dime's worth of confidence in one.

Garbz said:
- I doubt someone who's living depends on their gear considers ebay knockoffs a viable alternative than paying through the nose for Nikon accessories and then claiming it as a tax write-off.

If the performance was of much lower grade or the camera was to be used as a 2nd or backup camera or it was bought to be used by a new business, in all cases could I see a pro doing such. Our economy is not in the healthiest of ways lately.

Garbz said:
But no one is interested in actually thinking about looking into the future.

Consumers are less interested in what is coming vs what ca they get now too... the ones with the crystal balls that always try to forecast the futures also need to be told the same, just in a little more diplomatic manner.