Not at the price point he's talking about. Especially considering that if he's going from DX to FX, you're also talking about a serious outlay of cash for new lenses.

what about the D700

Just stay with the D300 mate. Nothing that is a real upgrade to the D300 this year..

I love this forum. Great comments and questions. Something tells me that someone on this forum could answer my question.. I current have the D300 and want to upgrade. Based on the rumors of new releases this calendar year, what is the best Nokon DSLR in the $1000 - 1,700 price range???

JP

Well I'll be, I didn't know about that. thanks for pointing it out, I should read the manual more carefully :)

Have you tried the My Menu feature on the D5000, stan? It's not a way to change all the settings you're talking about at once, but you can at least have them all on the same page.

I like where you're going with this. but rather than purchasing modules, I'd like some interface to fully customize my presets and menu options.. presets that cover auto-iso on/off, monochrome/color, exposure delay, af mode, metering, bracketing..
I don't know if you guys on the higher end models have this kind of control already, but they sure scatter some of these settings around in the d5000 menu system.

Yes, I've always liked the idea of a modular camera, we've discussed it before like Johnny said in this forum as well.

Another advantage to a modular camera is that the body would theoretically never be outdated. I hate the fact that two generations down the line, the D40 is usable but nowhere near as advanced as a D5000 in terms of high ISO. With a modular camera, you could stick the D5000 sensor in the D40 if you wanted to.

Thanks for that. Great shots by the way... And yeah, looks plenty sharp. Definately nothing that either PS or GIMP couldn't handle if you wanted to sharpen it a tad.

And by the way, thanks also for the videos. Finally figured out why they wouldn't display for me the first time (a Skype browser add-on was raising hell with my browser).

Except for slight exposure, white balance, and noise reduction these are straight out of the camera (a D90). It gets even better when you correct for chromatic aberration. You can see some vignetting and some distortion, but it's not extreme and lightroom can take it out. I know you're not interested, but it's also a great lens for video because the VR is active during filming.
18mm @ f/4 Wide angle pretty much wide open.
105mm @ f/5.6 The other end of the range wide open.
48mm @ f/5.6 Middle of the zoom range.
28mm @ f/5.6 Stopped down a bit wide angle.
18mm @ f/3.5 Wide open at widest zoom. Handheld at 1/6s (note car passing on the road). I think it's pretty impressive, especially considering the price.

This lens is actually my dad's, and it may be that he got a great copy. I guess your mileage may vary.

Nice links Jonny. Certainly gives insight into why those pro lenses cost so much.

Slightly off-topic -- though not too much so, hopefully, since we're talking about lenses -- I've read in a few places that the 18-105 is a bit soft at the wide end (I've also pretty much stopped considering the 18-200 since, as Thom Hogan and others have noted, a lens that does a little of everything doesn't really do any of it all that well). I've seen you praise the 18-105 as a good lens in some of your posts, so I'm curious if you've noticed that at all. Of course, once the D90 replacement comes out that could be a moot question anyway if they go with a different kit lens...

EDIT: Sorry if the preceding doesn't make as much sense as it should; it's 2 in the morning, and if I have enough coffee to stay awake/make sense, then I'll never get to sleep.

Right after you mentioned that you're an English major would have been where Tom and Ray Magliozzi from Car Talk would have been asking you're using your degree for. I'll go easy, though, having considered English as a major myself (and it's what my older sister graduated in).

As to lenses, I don't think you get what you pay for, or at least not if you go into it thinking that twice the "quality" should cost twice the money. If you measure performance to cost ratios for a lot of lenses, you'll find that the best values are usually the kit lenses and cheap primes (of all the lenses I've used, I think the 18-105 VR is the best value). I don't think it's a conspiracy by the lens makers, though, because it's actually an engineering tour de force to make some of these beautiful lenses (that, I admit, I will only ever dream about owning because they're not worth buying to me). It's a law of decreasing returns—for small gains in performance you pay a lot. The first 80% toward 'perfection' (insert your definition here) costs a small fraction of what the next 18% costs, which is then small compared to what you have to pay to close those last few percent. Where in the performance vs cost graph does it stop making sense to invest? That's what each person should figure out every time they go digging in the couch to get a new toy. And they don't take old cheez doodles; I tried that once. By the way, I won't criticize you for not using the video if you don't criticize me for using it. ;-)

EDIT: check out these videos about a canon lens being made (they've been shared before by someone on the forum but I can't find the link). My favorite part is how many times they mention the entire lens name: "In order to make EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lenses..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkWsk9rXpcU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T7BDeMU_Ks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpkAWZTwqI4

No offense taken, Jonny. I don't know much about lens design or the physics behind it (you're talking to an English major :) ), so the whole thing makes a heck of a lot more sense now, given your explanation. I don't balk at the price, as long as you get what you pay for... if/when I'm in the market for faster glass (and from what I gather, it makes a big difference), I know I'm going to have to dig extra hard in the couch cushions. I wonder if the local camera shop takes stale cheez doodles and lint?

As to video: point taken. It's not as though I actively dislike it, but I also realize that I can count on one hand the number of times I've used the video on my camera and still have some digits left over. I guess if you're going to use it often, it's worth having (a friend of mine's looking at one of the higher-end Canon cameras for precisely that reason).

Ha! I love the idea of built in aperture ring. But JonnyA explains well where the extra money goes into.

I want video in DSLR. On a hardware side, I don't think it adds anything expensive. I am not an engineer so don't quote me on this. The most money goes into software development as far as I know.

These anti-video arguments have all been said before. It doesn't anger me when people say them like it does some others (even others on the forum), but let me explain why I don't think you should just say "buy a camcorder." It's like telling a photographer who wants extra lens choices to buy a point and shoot. It's exactly the same situation. Some people want to have a few more creative possibilities with video than a camcorder offers and would rather not (or cannot) spend thousands of dollars on an entirely new system.

If it's not important to you, why should you care if they added it? Can anyone honestly say that they think the D3s, D300s, or D90 gave anything up in stills quality vis a vis the D3, D300, and D80 for adding video capability? I could understand why some people would be a little afraid when it wasn't clear whether video would affect still image quality but I think that notion, along with the idea that it will make the bodies cost more, is a little silly now that we've got evidence that it won't.
EDIT: You know, the irony of this all is that now that I have the Sony NEX-5 for video I'm looking at the situation where my next camera may not even have video. Depending on what happens with the D90 replacement, I may get a new or used D700. The joke's on me, I guess!

The built-in aperture idea sounds good, but you're not seeing that it's lens design that limits the max aperture, not just the stop itself. The stop is there so that you can get smaller than the max aperture, but lenses would still be limited by the glass and how it's ground. Most of the extra money for a lens that is max f/4 at 400mm compared with one that's max f/8 is that the f/4 lens has at least a 100mm-diameter (400mm/4) front element and the whole lens has to perfectly map light that comes in through the whole front element to the right place on the sensor. The f/8 can have a front element that is just 50mm (400mm/8) in diameter, which works out to one fourth(!) the area of the f/4 version.

I'm not trying to attack you, ASD, I just want to clear up that it's not the built-in stop that's adding to the price of the pricey lenses, it's the glass. As with video, if you don't think they're worth the extra dollars, just don't use them and life goes on for everyone.

I like the idea of a modular camera, but I agree with Poster that it'd be VERY expensive. Two things I'd like to see:
--lenses without apertures. Build it into the camera instead; any lens can then be as fast or slow as you want or need. As an added advantage, the aperture could act as added protection for the sensor. Manufacturers would never do this, of course, because then they can't charge $1,000 extra for two more stops. :P

--Another area in which I completely agree with przemko: Just make a camera that shoots pictures! The added crap that goes into making a DSLR a half-baked camcorder could be better applied to faster/more accurate image processing, higher ISO sensitivity, etc., at the same price point.

I don't care that I can't bake cookies in a toaster; that's not what it's for. Yes, I know, some people want something that shoots video. If you want a camera that shoots video, buy a camcorder. If you want a kitten that barks, get a puppy. :P

EDIT: I know that the built-in aperture thing would lead to DSLR owners having to replace an awful lot of glass, which wouldn't be terribly practical. But since nobody has that Nikon EVIL camera yet... ;)

You have to see this from a viewpoint of a manufacturer. It would be quite expansive and the margin of profit would be smaller than selling a well rounded product.

I understand that you want a modular camera, yes? It won't happen anytime soon.

OK, so here it goes.
we all (well, most of us) talk about megapixels (which will not beat the analog film anytime soon- but that;s OK :), chip size, photon spillover etc. here is my thought what the ideal Nikon (I don't want something else) should look like and a commercial thought at the end. What brought me to make this post was the realization that as the cameras (not LENSES) get more expensive, they get so for two main reasons:
- the chip performance (a good reason)
- the number of software bells and whistles goes up (a bad reason)
So, my new Nikon should have:
- an FX chip (or maybe a bit bigger- just slightly oversized?)
- very few camera options- S/A/M and then one general auto mode when you just had too much the night before
- selftimer (one setting) and a cable release for a long exposure
- only RAW format (who cares about anything else- you will Photoshop it later anyway, won't you? The computer software si so mauch better in doing that than the camera build in JPG conversion. Why bother? Memory is cheap
- decent flash sync but don't overdo it
- weather proofing- so I can shoot in the rain
- decent autofocus- about 15 points would do
- NO BLEEDING VIDEO!!! Get yourself a #$%#@ camcorder!!!!

Then if you feel like you need a bluetooth, a water fountain, 21 different automodes and a bagel with a cream cheese, pay for it.

What Nikon could do is to sell a basic chip with the setup as above. And then you could splash out. You want sport photos- different settings for a bicycle race, a tennis game (usually a green background) or basketball because you a a sport photographer? Go for it. You shoot street riots? Well an auto-mode to compensate for street flashes and smoke, auto ISO for even better low light performance (normally of course attainable by manual setting in the basic setup but you may be in a hurry). And so on. Each module for 200-300 bucks. Portraits, architecture, family etc.
This way, one could have a high end camera with basic functions if you are a freak like me who likes it RAW and manual and never uses other buttons NOR reads the manual, or you could have something customized for your needs with the buttons you want for the price you want to pay. I think this way the basic model could go down in price by probably 15-20% and each module separately would increase the price by 5-10% about the baseline. TV sets producers do that all the time. More features, higher price but the hardware is usually the same.
Because, be honest, look in the mirror and ask yourself, REALLY, what is the percentage and the frequency of the use of the various "features" on your upper shelf Nikon DSLR?

Przemko