Nikon Releases D780

[VidThreeNorth]

Nikon has released its D780, which is their upgrade to the D750. Photography is diverse, so it's hard to say what a "bread and butter" camera is, but I think this might be worthy of that label. It is available now at an MSRP of $2,299.95 US, or as a kit with the AF-S 24-120mm F4G ED VR lens for $2,799.95 US.

"Nikon D780 Review"
Published Feb 18, 2020, by Dan Bracaglia, Richard Butler for DP Review
"Nikon D780 Review"

 

[TWX]

From that article, "At the time of publication, some US retailers are offering $300 off the price of a new D780 with the trade-in of any digital camera."

I wonder if they'd give three hundred bucks off I brought in this:

Seriously the stats look nice, and the full-frame 4K video development is probably a nod to online video content creators looking for higher quality cameras than what they've been using while maintaining high quality still image photography.

 

[Derrel]

Any digital camera. My thoughts immediately went to my small collection of thrift store digital point and shoots... I have a small box full of them, most of which I paid four or five bucks for at Goodwill.

10 years ago Goodwill was filled with point and shoot digicams in the 2 to 4 megapixel range, most of which worked. Now ten years on, a good number of the same type of cameras to not work.

 

[Derrel]

I watched the Chris Niccols dpreview video experience report on the Nikon D780... it sounds like a pretty good machine. The D750 was introduced in 2014... there have been some actual Innovations and it looks like the D780 is in many ways a real upgrade to the D750, but the name shows that the new camera still occupies the same position in the Nikon model hierarchy.

I was actually quite surprised to see that the pop-up flash has been eliminated from the new camera.

 

[TWX]

I was actually quite surprised to see that the pop-up flash has been eliminated from the new camera.

I wonder if they did any market surveys on usage. On my Canon 77D, if I have a shoe-mounted mic clamp installed then the popup flash won't pop up, if they expect video to be a primary use and if Nikon's cameras work similarly, they might not have felt the feature was used enough to bother. Throw in larger lenses and lens hoods and perhaps the low-height popup flash wasn't terribly good for still photography either.

 

[Derrel]

Chris Niccols speculated that the omission was possibly for cost-saving measures. But who really knows? I have owned cameras both with and without the pop-up flash. I think it is nice to have when you need emergency fill flash on axis. The the lack of a pop-up Flash ,it's not a deal-breaker for me. And in fact among old school thinkers a camera that has a pop-up Flash is looked on with lower status than a camera that does not have a pop-up Flash. So there's that...

 

[TWX]

I've never particularly liked using a flash due to the problems introduced when trying to shoot in dark settings, that's part why I've chased wide-aperture lenses. Only discovered it for fill-flash in the last couple of months, like it for that but I would probably have been OK without ever learning about that technique. I don't think I've used the flash on my current camera in truly dark settings ever.

 

[Derrel]

Flash has a number of uses...modern flashes can be used to wirelessly trigger off- camera flashes...the flash is more than a pop-up pipsqueek...

 

[TWX]

Flash has a number of uses...modern flashes can be used to wirelessly trigger off- camera flashes...the flash is more than a pop-up pipsqueek...

I like that. We should refer to the on-camera flash as a pipsqueak flash from now on, see if it catches-on.

 

[VidThreeNorth]

Removing the flash can be a big cost saving. Beyond the cost of the parts and manufacturing of the flash itself, it reduces the need for weather sealing that part of the camera.