as long as the D300s replacement has the same body and controls, the name is irrelevant.

Resellers are never told anything of value by reps until after a product is released, so take what they say with a grain of salt.

Quote
Take it how you will, but my friend who owns/runs a few small Nikon authorized shops says he was told that there will be no D400. There will be updates to the D3100, D7000 and one more camera but he doesn't know which.
He SPECULATES from what info he's gotten that the New D7000 upgrade will in fact be the successor/replacement to the D300. <Quote<<<

That is what I heard also.
I think Nikon is having trouble with their version of the 24MP Sony Sensor.
It may be a long time before we see a D7100 or D400.
But they could add Expeed 3 plus a bigger buffer, and uncripple the Video in a D7000s.

Take it how you will, but my friend who owns/runs a few small Nikon authorized shops says he was told that there will be no D400. There will be updates to the D3100, D7000 and one more camera but he doesn't know which.
He SPECULATES from what info he's gotten that the New D7000 upgrade will in fact be the successor/replacement to the D300. Which in its own meaning makes it the D400, but most likely with a D8000 tag? Perhaps a new name all together?
Anyway, just what I heard.

The plants from Thiland (where it flooded out) were scheduled to be "full speed" by the end of this month. If those plants are up, and the new plants in China are on-line (Apr-June timeline if I recall) we will start to hear something soon.

No news, there have been no rumors of any kind since last summer.

Seriously though...any news on the D400? I haven't heard a peep since the D4/D800 announcements.
Please won't somebody take my money!!!

Any news on the date? Last I heard, we were waiting until early March. That's coming up soon.

Three potential problems with the D800 for sports: too noisy at high ISO, too slow FPS, and maybe too small a buffer. I hope those turn out not to be problems at all. I hope many professional photographers use both the D4 and the D800 at the Olympics so we can see were the problems are and are not. When pros were shooting sports with film didn't they have more ISO, FPS and "buffer" limitations than the D800 will have? Sure, some things it won't do as well as a D4. But other things it will do better.

Donaldejose: My sympathies to you - if its not the boss at work, its the boss at home, and that's my point - americans are turned into a bunch of conformists.

they are told what to do.
what to eat.
what is cool.
what to wear.
what to shoot with.
and in your case what to sit on.
Such is life!

But yeah, why not a D800 for sports? I have been shooting sports for years now and I don't think my style/work will suffer if I use a D800 instead of D700 or a D3s.

donaldejose said:

Reminds me of my wife. She buys a pretty chair and I say "But it's not comfortable" and she says "Adjust your body, the chair stays because it is pretty."

Donaldejose you need to find your feminine side. Sorry but you will never make a photographer until you do

Nikoner: Now there's an idea. Buy the "best" camera and adjust your style.

Reminds me of my wife. She buys a pretty chair and I say "But it's not comfortable" and she says "Adjust your body, the chair stays because it is pretty."

donaldejose said:

If 16mp is perfect you have that now with the D7000 and the D5100. Likely the D400 will be more, such as a new 24mp DX sensor. So you will have larger file sizes to deal with no matter what you do. Shoot your everyday pics in JPEG basic and you will get vastly reduced file sizes.

JPEG ?!? Ain't gunna happen!

No, I said I will go to 24mp, but 16 is perfect. 24 is the top end of perfect, 36 is too much for me. You never know, I might end up a later taker-upper of a D7000. :-{

Or maybe if I was just more ruthless with culling in the first pass in Lightroom....

@Nikoner: Say what?

As a primarily sports photographer, I too was waiting for D700 replacement or a D400 whichever comes first, but after looking at D800 specs/reviews/pictures I have changed my mind. I am willing to realign my shooting/post-processing habits to suite D800, and in exchange I will liberate D800 from a cookie cutter stereo typing so common only in America.

/Rant On.

Started with Ford T only comes in black
boys wear blue (else you are gay)
girls wear pink (else you are a tomboy, thus lesbian)
If you go shopping for a shirt, your choices are: stripes or checkers or plain (and that too only certain colors dominate)
If you are corporate kind, then either a black or dark blue suite for you.

WTF America, Individuality is only touted but hardly practiced, they actually strip you off your individuality and turn you into a zombie.

/Rant Off.

I am willing to pay more for better ergonomics, slightly better ISO, white balance, AF, and faster continuous shooting. Which I believe D400 will have.(may be not the ISO) I don't mind it being DX nor FX.. If its FX and price is low, I'll buy it ;)

I'll have my bet on it being $1999.99.... may be Nikon might release D400E as well since its DX flagship?

I felt the same about the D800 and was waiting for a D400. If the D400 had come out first I would have bought it. But I am just too enticed by various blog comments, for example this one: "After spending a month with the D800, I'll never be the same again. I will now think differently about the images I make, and perhaps that is the best compliment any photographer can make. http://jimbrandenburg.blogspot.com/ Brandenburg's credentials cannot be beat. And the full size images I have seen from the D800 are most impressive.

If 16mp is perfect you have that now with the D7000 and the D5100. Likely the D400 will be more, such as a new 24mp DX sensor. So you will have larger file sizes to deal with no matter what you do. Shoot your everyday pics in JPEG basic and you will get vastly reduced file sizes.

JForhan said:
If you are comparing the camera to a PC, and make purchases based off of that, you will always have outdated technology. No matter when you finally decide to buy. If you chase the technology then you will:

a) Never be happy
b) Go broke

Going from a D80 to D7000 will blow your mind.

Later,
Jeff

Hey, I did consider D7000. In fact, I used to own one but returned it after 3 weeks of use. I had a second thought of returning it and investing a little more later and get D400. So... I know how it feels like to use D7000. And yeah, comparing camera to computers are quite a distance but both have one common ground: Digital product. Digital product will get outdated eventually as you said. That's why I want newly released camera; not the one that had been released nearly two years ago so that I'd be happy I have new tech. I'm just being careful and try to get every bit of money I spend since near $2,000 is a lot of money for me... a college student.
BTW thanks for the advice. D7000 did blow my mind back then. But my greed tells me I need to get D400........

D800 seems too much for my needs. It does have competitive edge over other DX cameras for the professionals.. but not for me. Also having some DX lenses, I will have trouble getting rid of them... I don't think I'd want to use DX mode a lot with FX camera. That just throws away the purpose of buying FX...

I hope Nikon release D400 soon though.. Until then I guess I'd stick with my good ol' D80.. which is perfectly fine during the day.

I'd bet the D300s replacement (D400 as we are calling it) is DX. Doesn't make any marketing sense for it not to be.

donaldejose: The D800 is too rich ($) for me plus I don't want huge files to store the pics from. 16mp is perfect.

I think as an amateur I am more excited for the D400, but I am hoping it is DX and not possibly FX like some thing it might be. But since we haven't seen any features or anything yet I don't have any idea if it would be what I really needed. I don't think I want to move to FX just yet though.

As a many times published amateur with many DX and FX lenses I can see a thousand reasons for getting the D800 over the D400 and using the 16 mp DX subsumed inside the 36 mp FX sensor when desired. With a D800 I can use both my DX and my FX lenses as desired. I can boost the reach of my FX lens by simply "pushing a button" to go into DX crop mode. For example, I can put my 28-300 FX zoom on and transform it into a 42-450mm zoom anytime I want that much reach. And this comment is entirely factual, not philosophical or theoretical.

As an amateur with a few DX lenses seven, I can see around a thousand reasons for getting the D400 over the D800 plus all the 'reasons' I would spend changing those lenses!

So how about a D800 in DX mode ?

Yes probably more expensive than a D400

but you could

upgrade from Dx to Fx at the touch of a button

you can take full advantage of your all your wide angle Fx lenses and be less critical when framing, if you shoot in Fx mode

the 800 is just 3oz heaver than the 300s

For professional use I can little advantage of a D400 over a D800

if you are not a profession and on tight budget the D7000 seem to be pretty good

Def +1

blckcat said:
zilk - D7000 have Expeed 2. I'm not sure why I put "already", but anyways Nikon upgraded the Expeed 2 to process data better and probably have better algorithms to improve whitebalance, colors and such. I'm just saying it feels like outdated. Think like computer - which are also electronics - D7000 has Core2Duo while the upcoming models like D800, V1 have i7. Because DSLRs are also electronic it just feels outdated and when it's feels outdated, i feel hesitant to buy it.

If you are comparing the camera to a PC, and make purchases based off of that, you will always have outdated technology. No matter when you finally decide to buy. If you chase the technology then you will:

a) Never be happy
b) Go broke

Going from a D80 to D7000 will blow your mind.

Later,
Jeff

I'm also really looking forward to a D400 announcement, but I'm lucky to have the luxury of waiting. Just like computers, you have to buy the best option available when you need it, because there's always going to be something better around the corner. The waiting for the perfect upgrade can be paralyzing, and you could miss out on valuable productivity by waiting for the next cycle (in this case, missing shots you might have gotten with better equipment). If you need a new camera by March, neither the D400 nor the D800 are really options since it seems to take about a month after the announcement to start shipping.

The D7000 is a great camera, but you really just have to decide for yourself if you've got the time to wait for the next generation or not.

As for the processors though, a 16 megapixel camera really doesn't need the same processor as a 36 megapixel one. I'm just guessing, but I would think the D800 would be crippled by the older processor, but the D7000 would only see a marginal improvement with the new one. A new censor and software upgrade will have more of an impact than the processor.