PB PM said:
I'm starting to get the feeling this new camera may not even be a still camera. Maybe it is a Nikon video camera with an F-Mount?
I've been too timid to let myself believe this, but I am (wishfully), in tepid agreement. If Nikon actually made a DX- or FX-sensored, 1080p24 video camera that accepted F-mount lenses directly, I would pee my pants with joy. Nikon should be poised to develop a RED-killer type product, or at least, a competing product to the announced, Panasonic AG-AF100. Note that there are tons of people that put Nikkor glass on their RED ONE cameras, using the $500 F-mount adapter from RED. And those filmmakers that already own any amount of Nikon glass, but didn't pony up the $17,500 for a RED ONE body (plus the other $10,000 for the necessary RED accessories), I'm sure, would be just as ready to buy such a product (priced within a range of say, $2,000-$6,000 USD), with similar capabilities.
But I know that considerable engineering resources are required to develop an efficient CODEC for high-quality recording--this is most likely Nikon's greatest stumbling block in developing such a product (and one of Panasonic's greatest competitive advantages, thanks to their long involvement in AVC-based CODEC development for their broadcast products).
Unfortunately, Nikon appears to be too far-skewed toward their consumer market for our tastes, and, as others here have already alluded, Nikon's new EVIL product is more likely, a smaller-than-DX, "CES" kind of "gee whiz" consumer-oriented product instead. And, most worrisome to me, was all the talk about, "simple movie cameras for uploading video" to the web (Nikon "flip?" Really?), and even just the mere mention of the word, "cameraphones," :::shudder::: was enough to scare the begeesus outta me. Simply because those words tend to imply a more "consumer-ey" type of product development strategy, where the emphasis is on "new technology," rather than improvements in image quality, or a vision for a new type of high-quality imaging system.
