where there’s smoke there’s forum fire
I want my D400!....... when they announce it..... I just wonder if it will be less than the 24MP but have great ISO. I think I am becoming rather spoiled at shooting photos in the dark....
And,as I have detected a bit of frustration in your voice, Tao, you apparently have not been able to find out anything from the insiders, yes?
I was waiting impatiently for the D400 but Nikon dropped the D800 on us. I couldn't help myself, had to order one. I still want the D400 but my strategy has changed. Until now I used two D300's (replaced by two D400's) and a D3s. My new plan is the D3s (until the D4s is released), a D800, and a D400. With various lens combinations I can taylor my combat load to the mission, waste less/no time switching lenses, and not get dirt in the camera.
msmoto said:
And,as I have detected a bit of frustration in your voice, Tao, you apparently have not been able to find out anything from the insiders, yes?
I have found some on flickr who seem to get allot of the equipment somewhat early and they are posting images of everything but no Nikons. If they have something - nothing gets posted for a while, then a bunch pop out.
I would be interested if any admins have heard anything at all.
It seems like there is a lot less information out there regarding the D400 than the other cameras that came out this year. That might just be my perception because it’s the one I’ve been waiting for. I’ve been trying to figure out where it fits in the lineup.
This is what we have right now.
D3200, DX, 24MP, $699.00 (w/ 18-55, not listed body only)
D5100, DX, 16MP, $746.95 – 150 = 596.95
D7000, DX, 16.2MP, $1,199.95
D800, FX, 36.3MP, $2,999.99
D4, FX, 16.2MP, $5,999.95
Everything else is discontinued but still available. Prices are USD from B&H.
So I assume that the D400 needs to fit in between the D7000 and the D800 price point. If it’s to expensive people will just get the D800, to low and they will have killed the D7000 sales.
So the price point for a DX sensor D400 with 24MP is $1999.99 or maybe a touch lower, please?
Now I’ve found a couple of web sites that postulate a possible FX sensor D400, then the question, is it a mini D4 or a mini D800. I think Nikon positioned these cameras perfectly the D800 in the Studio/landscape high MP camera class and the D4 is the rugged, high speed, high iso journalist/sports camera class.
A FX sensor D400 as a mini D800 is still 24MP at $1999.99 (is there a sensor that fits that bill?) but as a mini D4 it’s a 16MP, high speed, high iso, maybe with the D3 sensor shoe horned in (o.k. the body might have to grow to D700/800 size) Price point then could be high because it’s no longer competing with the D800.
O.k. now this is just me think out of my a** but I imagine the D400 production line up and ready to go when bam the flood hits! Now Nikon is forced with producing a camera which is 6 months to a year behind the market by the time they can get everything up and running again or start over with the next model. Maybe this accounts for the lack of good information because Nikon isn’t sure what they’re doing yet or they just really good a keeping secrets.
What do you think? Am I way off here? TaoTeJared, I maybe crazy but at least I'm on topic!
OK, I still think NIKON has to have "Pro" DX camera and the D400 will be it. Maybe the timing, production problems with the D800, D4, and release of the D3200 are all factors in the hold up. If it is a "mini" D4, high ISO, high FPS, this will be the perfect companion to my D4. Especially with the long lens situation where the extra 1.5 can get you out there into tomorrow almost.
Another wild guess.....announcement in early May, about the 11th?
My suspicions are that Nikon will move the D400 up to FX, but not as capable as the D800 or D4. Possibly the internals of a D3s plumbed with the new Expeed 3, so you get a decent FPS (say, 6-7?), but lower MPix, but the benefits of a better sensor than the D700. It's this, or the "mini D4 but DX" as stated.
But you have a very capable D7000 which was biting into the D300s territory in terms of capability and specs, and I find it a bit hard to see how you can reasonably upgrade the D7000 without overlapping a DX D400, so FX seems to be one of the easier ways to allow differentiation. That, and Nikon appears to be the sort of company that enjoys getting the jump on their competition in each target segment, so I see this as somewhat plausible.
Then again I could be wrong and it'll be DX anyway, in which case I'd get a D700.
zhinsara said:
... and I find it a bit hard to see how you can reasonably upgrade the D7000 without overlapping a DX D400, so FX seems to be one of the easier ways to allow differentiation
This is the only 'pro D400 FX' argument I heard so far that actually makes sense to me.
That and my believe that the D7000 desperately needs improved video capabilities to successfully compete with the current same level Canon lineup,therefore a soon to be released D7100 makes sense to me.
Following this (wishful thinking) logic, I can only come back to find myself supporting your argument for an FX D400.
May you all be happy with your D400 FX while I can enjoy my new and cheap D7100 with kick-ass manual video capabilities.
sevencrossing said:
Apologies if this has been mentioned before
Given that the only "Pro" Nikon DX lens is the 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX NIKKOR
I am not so sure
I think what I meant by "pro" was heavy, and similar controls as the D4.... easy to have both in hand and switch. With something like the old D90, the menus were a nightmare... the D200 was very similar to the layout of the D4. So, I understand the D400 will not be officially a "Pro" body, but I was referring to the idea of something which is similar in layout to the D4. The lenses.... for sure, I will be using only the FX so I can easily move from one body to another. It makes sense to me, instead of a high pixel studio camera, which has the ability to do what I really do not need or use, I prefer the second body to have the capabilities to work out as a super telephoto in some situations, or as a short lens when the FX and 400 + 1.4x or 2.0x are attached.
So, I have my wants....now where is it NIKON?..... no one ever reads these from NIKON.... we just think they do.....ha, ha, ha..
msmoto said:
....now where is it NIKON?..... no one ever reads these from NIKON.... we just think they do.....ha, ha, ha..
Of course they do. Heck, there a companies not half the size of Nikon who have guys monitoring anything that is said about the company online, at least within the more credible larger audience forums.
If you think about it, It only takes one or two guys full time to read all the relevant Nikon Forums and compile a weekly report of whats out there.
Who knows, maybe you are the only real customer in here and we are all Nikon spies trying to
1. make you spend money you don't have
2. for stuff you don't need
3. to impress people you don't like
Did you tick all 3 boxes? Then we finally succeeded :)
A bit of history and current existence is probably good to add here. Too much emphasis is put on the sensor as the main difference between a D7000 and the D300/s.
-Start with the D300(300s just being updated sensor with video to match Canons 7d) is almost 5 years old.
-The second consideration is that Canon and Nikon made strides to "match" each other in the last 4 years. The D80/90 was always a step below the 50/60d due to weather sealing and a few other small things that the D7000 now matches. Canon's 7d was released due to the 50/60d series did not match the pro level features the D300 had. Now Nikon and Canon lineups match for the most part on specs.
-The D200/300 has always had 95-99% of the feature set of the Dx Pro line. That is AF motors, Metering, Custom controls, shutter life, weather sealing, full magnesium body and all the little features minus just a couple from the pro lines. The D7000 does not have that, and those who want a DX with that pro set, the D7000 does not cut it. Not taking anything away from the D7000 but it just does not fit the Pro set of the D300 series.
FX in D400: Very, very, very doubtful.
1) Many pros do want/need the DX for various shooting and in camera crop doesn't cut it. Think of wildlife/ bird shooters.
2) Almost zero expectation the Canon 7d will be FX. Market position does matter.
3) FX would cut into D800 and D4 sales. The D700 did this, and Nikon will not do that again.
4) Price: The D400 needs to be between $1,300 and $3,000 but still low enough to pull people from a D7000 but to cover the additional cost of features. $2,000.
And to shoot this D400 will be FX dead:
5) Cost. I have read a couple of times that the DX sensors are about 1/4 of the production cost of a camera. FX sensors are exponentially higher. Published comments by manufactures over the last 8 years have stated FX costs 5-20X more (decreasing as of late.) If you take the low side of that (assuming technology advancements have lowered the cost) it still is not feasible, unless a company decides to loose money on it to have a $2,000 FX body. (Sony did this with the a900 to gain market share and acknowledged they were loosing money on it.)
Here's the math:
-The MSRP of a D300 was $2,000. Say reasonably production cost is $1,500.
-Assume reasonably the cost of the sensor is 1/4 of the camera price price. $375 for DX sensor.
Cost ($1,500) x 1/4 = $375 (sensor cost.)
x (times) industry reports cost factor (5 x $375) = $1875 (FX sensor cost.)
+ (add) back to cost of body (1500-375)=$1,125 (Body only) + $1875 (FX sensor)
= $3,000
= D800.
Funny how that works out right? D400 will not be a FX camera.
As for everything else - It will have 95-99% of the feature set of the D4/d800. Basically it will be a D800 with a DX sensor.
Video will be interesting to see as that is where things could change either more pro or less pro. That probably would also influence the sensor choice as well.
The other decision point for them will be also the FPS as something tells me they will want this much higher than the D800 and move it closer to Sony's.
They don't change buffers between the D4/D800/D400 (didn't in the last two generations) so to achieve that we could see a 18-20mp sensor with great low light, and high FPS rate.
@Tao..... thanks, you always say it so well. I guess In4fun did not realize I was a bit "tongue in cheek" with the idea NIKON does not read these. Aren't our checks due in the mail soon?
@Tao, I looked up the FX-DX cost differential (only documents I easily found were from 06 but probably still hold true) , and your cost breakdown seems to be pretty reasonable. There's truth in historical trends, so unless Nikon does something out of the blue, it's quite likely that you'd be right, and msmoto would get what she needs :P
first of all guys, I've cleaned up this topic - sorry if Your post was deleted but if it really was than it was out of topic - now this thread is more about d400 and not about sensor sizes and FOV, which was discussed in other topics already.
as a wildlife enthusiast I was also hoping that the d400 will be a DX camera, but with the release of d800 (and since I put my hand on it) I start to doubt that. Is there really a need for a pro DX camera when we have d800 with 36mpx??? If we gonna see a DX D400 than it's gonna be a 24Mpx camera, let's see what will be the benefits:
- a slightly more pixels to crop 24Mpx vs 15Mpx
- fps - I doubt we gonna see more than 6fps so I would say no benefit over here
- 1.2 crop mode on DX would be really nice, as it will give some more "zoom"
- slightly smaller body - though I doubt it's gonna be much smaller than d800
The reasonable options I have read between Nikon & Canon really surround video. People have made suggestions (Prior to D4 and MkIII) that the two may push better video towards the D300/7d line (as resolution is not needed for video) and go with a reduced mp & more sensitive senor. Many would like great video from a pro style camera but at a cheaper price point to use as a second or third body. That would seem to make since to me.
Really the real question is, what will we see in 4 years as that is the upgrade cycle for this series. (D300s to me was a marketing need to add video and don't consider it an upgrade.) In 4 years do we see 36mp DX or even higher? I'm guessing no. Just as the D4 had a modest upgrade, I could see the D400 having a modest upgrade as well and leaving the D7100 as the resolution but not as good high ISO.
That is pure speculation to me. Something tells me the D400 was already worked out but the Thiland floods along with the popularity of the d7000 gave them the opportunity to re-think the D400. History would say it would be a 24mp chip, but as history goes, it would have been released prior to the D3200 as well and by the D5100, the high ISO would have been slightly better with the D7100 beating it. Now it's position is in the middle of the bunch.
Tao, If I’m hearing you right your saying the D400 could be marketed towards the video crowd. This might make some sense: D4 – Journalist/sports photographer, D800 – Studio/landscape, D400 – Video. Not that I’d like it.
Just bear with me again while I go down the FX rabbit hole one more time. Most of what I’ve read about chips and silicon involves computer chips so it might not be relevant but…. The fab for the D3 chips already exist, there is no R&D cost. It seems that most of the sensors have a 2-4 year life cycle, in the DX world older chip technology gets pushed down to lower cost models. I think it would be safe to say that D3 sensor is better than any DX sensor, why not push it down? The cost of manufacturing should go down with time as R&D costs are defrayed, “the long tail”.
So a 24MP FX D400 with a sensor from the D3x would be better than a D7000 but certainly fall behind the D800 in resolution. It would fall behind the D4 in resolution a little but mostly it would lack the other features of a rugged journalist camera.
So my logic may be flawed but it seems like a crime to not take full advantage of such a fine sensor. Especially when it’s the camera I want, now I just need a few thousand more people to tell Nikon they’d buy it too.
The big question for me will be the price of the D400 or will I just get the D800?
I think we are kidding our selfs with fx D400 talk. Its the Pro dx body and thats what it will remain. They need it to be so they can capture the 7d market. The reason the 7d was so popular was because it was the all purpose tool for action sports. One guy could get it and shoot everything he wanted and it was tough and a good size. Nikon knows that market they are after, the d400 cinematic video/s are long board skateboarding in Portland, Oregon (filmed in early september). Also Dx is ideal for action sports because its lower budget and requires telephoto work.
Sure everyone is going to ruin my fantasy with reason and knowledge, just stop that right now ;-)
TaoTeJared said:
FX in D400: Very, very, very doubtful.
1) Many pros do want/need the DX for various shooting and in camera crop doesn't cut it. Think of wildlife/ bird shooters.
2) Almost zero expectation the Canon 7d will be FX. Market position does matter.
3) FX would cut into D800 and D4 sales. The D700 did this, and Nikon will not do that again.
4) Price: The D400 needs to be between $1,300 and $3,000 but still low enough to pull people from a D7000 but to cover the additional cost of features. $2,000.And to shoot this D400 will be FX dead:
5) Cost. I have read a couple of times that the DX sensors are about 1/4 of the production cost of a camera. FX sensors are exponentially higher. Published comments by manufactures over the last 8 years have stated FX costs 5-20X more (decreasing as of late.) If you take the low side of that (assuming technology advancements have lowered the cost) it still is not feasible, unless a company decides to loose money on it to have a $2,000 FX body. (Sony did this with the a900 to gain market share and acknowledged they were loosing money on it.)
Here's the math:
-The MSRP of a D300 was $2,000. Say reasonably production cost is $1,500.
-Assume reasonably the cost of the sensor is 1/4 of the camera price price. $375 for DX sensor.
Cost ($1,500) x 1/4 = $375 (sensor cost.)
x (times) industry reports cost factor (5 x $375) = $1875 (FX sensor cost.)
+ (add) back to cost of body (1500-375)=$1,125 (Body only) + $1875 (FX sensor)
= $3,000
= D800.
Hi Tao,
I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you and here is why (in reverse order of your points):
5) Cost: The math just doesn't make sense to me. In a sense it's as if you were saying that the D700 couldn't have existed because it would have been priced at $3000 at a minimum. Your calculations also don't account for adding back the profit which makes the final price $3500 therefore even the D800 is a production paradox.
For one thing, I doubt the cost of production is as high as 3/4 of the price of the camera. For another, technology reports from 8 years ago can be highly inaccurate in today's world.
4) Price: Price-wise, there is a huge gap between D7000 and D800. I doubt Nikon will only release one camera to fill out that gap.
3) Undercutting sales: The only time that would be true is when a company does a poor job of managing inventory and matching production expectations. Then it's a case of supply vs demand and the company should have planned accordingly.
If there is a market then there is a market. If Nikon doesn't take advantage of it then someone else will. That is exactly why the 5D and D700 were so successful in the first place and it's exactly why both Nikon and Canon kept those two lines.
2) Canon 7D: Nikon is not obligated to wait for Canon to release another FX before they do so. Another point worth mentioning here is that while D300s might have been Nikon's response to the 7D, the 7D itself (and the line differentiation that followed) was Canon's response to the new postion the D300 had after the release of the D700.
1) While I agree with you that a pro DX is wanted/needed that doesn't mean that there is no place in the market for another FX camera. Is it going to be called D400? D700s? D750? Who knows!
If there is one thing that the D800 had taught us is that model numbers hold very little meaning as far as representing true camera successors. I'm not bashing the D800 or anything here. In fact I think it's an amazing camera and probably the best DSLR on market today. But is it a true successor to the D700? I don't think so.
Your logic is flawed as well. upon release the D700 was $2999 just like the D800 is right now. Three years passed before the price fell under $2500!
Price does fall over time, as R&D costs are covered. I suspect Nikon was losing money on the D700 towards the end of production. They made up for that by selling more FX lenses though.
iris chrome said:
........
4) Price: Price-wise, there is a huge gap between D7000 and D800. I doubt Nikon will only release one camera to fill out that gap.
..........
If there is one thing that the D800 had taught us is that model numbers hold very little meaning as far as representing true camera successors.
My gut feeling is the gap will be filled by a D8000
PB PM said:
Your logic is flawed as well. upon release the D700 was $2999 just like the D800 is right now. Three years passed before the price fell under $2500!
That's strictly MSRP and back then MSRP meant nothing more than just that, a Minimum *Suggested* Retail Price. Back then we also didn't have the new Minimum Selling Price policy as we do now.
http://camelcamelcamel.com/Nikon-12-1MP-FX-Format-Digital-3-0-Inch/product/B001BTCSI6
That's the price report for D700 at Amazon since it was launched. Two to three months after launch, street prices started going down. Five months after launch, street prices were already around $2700 and very shortly after they went down further to below $2500. I find it very hard to believe that either Nikon or Amazon was selling the D700 at a loss back that early after launch. MSRP back then meant nothing, unlike now and Nikon knows this very well.
Even if the price of the D700 did stay at $3000 for a longer time then as per Tao's analysis, Nikon as well as the retailers were just breaking even.
Very fair - I'll try to add as much reference and Info where I derive my conclusions from. I have worked around technology delivery of various systems (outside of photography) for 10 years and Camera manufacturing seems to mimic those industries except for when something goes wrong, they are set back further then say computer chip/board/parts manufactures.
iris chrome said:
5) Cost: The math just doesn't make sense to me. In a sense it's as if you were saying that the D700 couldn't have existed because it would have been priced at $3000 at a minimum. Your calculations also don't account for adding back the profit which makes the final price $3500 therefore even the D800 is a production paradox.
The D700 was $3,000 when it was released.
(http://press.nikonusa.com/post/2008/07/01/the-agile-new-nikon-d700-fx-format-d-slr-camera-delivers-performance-inspired-by-the-nikon-d3-in-a-smaller-lighter-design/)
I do not fully understand your statement:
"Your calculations also don't account for adding back the profit which makes the final price $3500 therefore even the D800 is a production paradox."
I'm assuming you are suggesting that camera bodies make profit from the get go and I didn't account for that. I think the numbers are relativity close which is all anyone but a bean counter at Nikon can know. Being off a few hundred bucks or 10%, that easily could be the case. I do not believe Nikon, Canon, Sony or other companies make tons of money on higher end products, as they make much more on accessories. Consider the last MSRP on the D700 was $2,700 to get rid of stock probably at cost. So you can move all my numbers down 10%.
iris chrome said:
For one thing, I doubt the cost of production is as high as 3/4 of the price of the camera. For another, technology reports from 8 years ago can be highly inaccurate in today's world.
My statement was "Published comments by manufactures OVER the last 8 years." One of the first comments on cost was from Canon about 8 years ago and that was very high (20+) but that was a long time ago as you said. Nikon hasn't released any cost from what I have ever seen. Sony sort of did but you had to back into it, that is where the DX sensor cost was about 1/4-1/3rd the production cost due to the failure rate of manufacturing sensors, i.e. dead sensors on a wafer. The more recent one I ran across was from a industrial chip maker who used the 5-6x cost factor again stating the failure rate per wafer. Apologies, but I don't bookmark every story I read.
This site does a good job describing the fabrication differences of an FX/DX chip where you can see the cost factors change.
http://www.nikonhq.com/nikon-d700-review/the-fx-sensor
iris chrome said:
4) Price: Price-wise, there is a huge gap between D7000 and D800. I doubt Nikon will only release one camera to fill out that gap.
I have often thought the same thing but this is the same/similar gap they have had for the last 2-3 generations and Canon has a similar gap. I'm just not sure what can be added or removed to split it up. Evidently neither does Canon or Nikon. ;)
iris chrome said:
3) Undercutting sales: The only time that would be true is when a company does a poor job of managing inventory and matching production expectations. Then it's a case of supply vs demand and the company should have planned accordingly.
That can be true in some situations and I have experienced that first hand. What I was point to was the paradox (I'm adopting your word as my "word of the day" btw- love that word) that many users opted to buy just a D700 rather than the D3 since performance and feature wise, it was almost the same camera. If you guesstimate that Nikon makes 10% (any % would work) profit, 10% of $3,000 = $300, 10% of $5,000 = $500. Say 50,000 people did this: D700: $15mil vs D3 $25mil. Whatever % or # of people that did this - it equals a chunk of change. In a year when Nikon lost 100s of millions due to the Thailand floods and earthquakes, they need to make up some ground for sure. Companies have only two goals: Survive and make money - everything is grounded on that universal certainty.
iris chrome said:
If there is a market then there is a market. If Nikon doesn't take advantage of it then someone else will. That is exactly why the 5D and D700 were so successful in the first place and it's exactly why both Nikon and Canon kept those two lines.
I don't think anyone would argue with that or the D700 was an answer to the 5D.
iris chrome said:
2) Canon 7D: Nikon is not obligated to wait for Canon to release another FX before they do so. Another point worth mentioning here is that while D300s might have been Nikon's response to the 7D, the 7D itself (and the line differentiation that followed) was Canon's response to the new postion the D300 had after the release of the D700.
I would agree Nikon is not obligated at all.
"...Canon's response to the new postion the D300.." I don't think you could call the D300 being a new position as it was the 3rd generation of it's feature set. The 5D changed the game making a FX more available. Reviewers had a hell of a time comparing D80 vs 50D, 50D vs D300, D300 vs 5D all of which was more like apples to watermelons, or Honda to Mercedes. They were just all in their own class. I'm not sure there was anything wrong with it, but it seems Canon and Nikon wanted more fair product comparisons. I can't think of another reason why.
iris chrome said:
1) While I agree with you that a pro DX is wanted/needed that doesn't mean that there is no place in the market for another FX camera. Is it going to be called D400? D700s? D750? Who knows!
I don't disagree that their could be - Hell I would love to see a $2500 FX camera. I'm just one of those pesky realists that see things for what they are.
There is one thing for sure, FX body production lines are limited in their capacity. Nikon made a big deal about adding a 3rd line a while back to handle demand - and it still can't keep up. With what we are seeing from the sluggish D800/D4 shipments, If there is another FX body, we won't see them hitting a high availability for a very long time.
iris chrome said:
"a true successor"
Every time I hear this, my mind drops into a "Game of Thrones" inner dialogue: Who is the true successor? The inbred, the older brother, the younger brother, the last Targaryen, would Stark really just kill Joffery and leave the Iron Throne to someone else? Deee daaa deee daaaa - de da da daaaa, da dee daaa deee da, du da daaaaaa.
I understand some people's disappointment. No one wants to spend $3,000 more for what they wanted. I just think those who wanted more resolution and didn't want to spend the $5,000 premium of the D3x won out this time - and in a very big way.
What if the D400 is DX but has a 16-18mp sensor that matches the D3s high iso?
Looking at what the Fuji X-pro1's images, I would say it can be done.
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