Nikon announces D3 and D300

[Gdad]

Check out the EXIF data on this image. From the Osaka Games. D3 - ISO 5000

 

[Geoff_M]

Jeff, I saw that and other images posted all over the DPReview forums a couple of days ago. However, I'm really leery of putting too much weight into them. While the images has some face validity (A reporter for the UK's Guardian newspaper was told at the UK launch that a few D3's would be available for selected use at the Osaka games), others have reported that some of the EXIF data on some of the Osaka images looks funky and may have been manipulated. We've witnessed this all before after the D2x was announced. Images from pre-production units are pretty meaningless and should be taken with a large grain of salt (though presumably the images in the final products shouldn't be any worse!). If you'll remember someone from Luminous Landscape (Link) posted some images from a trade show that were shot with a pre-production D2x and pronounced the camera as a "dud" due to poor noise and image quality issues. However, the poster of the images (a "Canon guy") made mistakes with regard to the camera settings he used retracted the lot of the images and his conclusions. When the "real thing" came out the results were quite different.

Unless some one like Phil Askey, Bjørn Rørslett, Thom Hogan, or Rob Galbraith steps forward with some examples, I'll discount other supposed D3 images.

 

[H.E. Pennypacker]

I don't like to get into the "black vs. gray" debates, but I gotta share something. It's by no means scientific, but when we were at WDW for two weeks this summer something amazed me as I looked around the parks. I saw people carrying Nikon dSLRs all over the place... D40's, D50's, and D70's, plus one person with a D2x! Nikon dSLRs seemed to out pace the other brands' dSLRs by 2-1. I'm really beginning to think that Nikon is turning the corner in the dSLR market. At the D3/D300 press conference Nikon execs said that the "prosumer" market is their #1 targeted market, and they sure seem to making some pretty serious inroads.

I noticed the same thing. Now maybe it's only because I own a D70s so I'm more conscious of other Nikon users, but I saw a TON of D200's and D80's when I was there this past May.

Count me in on the group that's hoping these new releases will drive down the price of the D200 a bit. Nah, who am I kidding? I want the D300! My D70s was dropped from the current line-up about 9 months after I bought it. With my luck, the same thing would happen to the D200 if I took the plunge. So to be safe, I better just go for the D300. (How's that for rationalization? )

 

[cryssi]

you know, all the Disney photographers use Nikon dslrs...

also the Shutters photogs on DCL use D200's!

 

[Geoff_M]

I'm going to ignore my own advice and post this news that just came out today:

Nikon tops SLR customer satisfaction survey
Posted by Stephen Shankland

Well, this news isn't going to go over well at Canon.

According to a new survey by J.D. Power and Associates, Nikon is the clear leader in customer satisfaction among digital SLR (single-lens reflex) customers in the United States. Adding insult to injury, SLR newcomer Sony came in second.

A new customer satisfaction gives Nikon SLRs the lead.

Nikon scored 822 out of a possible 1,000 on a rank of how well its cameras measured up with the qualities consumers find important.

"It dominates in digital SLRs," Steve Kirkeby, executive director of telecomunciations and technology, said in an interview.

Sony scored 793. At 788, third place went to Canon--the top seller of digital cameras in general and of SLRs specifically--followed closely by Pentax at 787 and Olympus at 783. The survey didn't rank Panasonic, another new entrant, or Samsung, which today sells Pentax SLRs under its own brand.

SLR cameras, expensive but high-performance models, are at the center of a fiercely competitive and increasingly crowded marketplace. Canon is the top seller worldwide, with Nikon in second place. Link

I haven't seen worldwide numbers for 2007, but I did read that before Christmas 2006 Nikon became the #1 dSLR seller in Japan and that trend has held so far for 2007.

This isn't to say that Canon is "in trouble", but I think news like this puts to bed a lot of the sentiments that the sun was setting on Nikon, Inc.

 

[Geoff_M]

Jeff, also submitted for you "grain of salt" consideration, some reported D300 ISO6400 examples (with and w/o NR) that appear to be from an Asian launch press conference: Link

 

[tinksdad]

Check out the EXIF data on this image. From the Osaka Games. D3 - ISO 5000

Pretty impressive!

Not sure I want to see examples of what the D3 can do!! for a "variety" of reasons.

 

[Groucho]

I'm going to ignore my own advice and post this news that just came out today:

Assuming you buy into JD Power (which I don't always do, but I respect 'em a lot more than Consumer Reports), what's really telling here is that even between the top-rated and the bottom-rated, there only 5% difference! And what's the margin of error - it's not listed, but I would suspect that it's somewhere around 3% or so.

Basically, it's darn near a tie - DSLR owners are a happy bunch, no matter what they buy.