With the exception of Best Buy, none of the other major US retailers have received any Nikon D7000 yet and none of them have an estimated shipment date. In other words, Amazon is not the only one (at least they offered a discount).
Some readers were able to get the Nikon D7000 from small/independent Nikon dealers:
An internal message was distributed to all Best Buy stores indicating that the delivery dates for three different products is to be determined. One of those product was labeled as “Nikon Q750”:
“The delivery date is to be determined for the:
- Nikon S8100
- Canon 60D
- Nikon Q750″
I am 100% positive that this message is authentic and was sent out on October 15th. What I don’t know is what “Nikon Q750” stands for – it could be a typo, an internal code, a continuation of the “Nikon Q” hoax from last month, or an indication of a new upcoming product from Nikon mistakenly included on that list.
Here is a screenshot of the message:
This is my hands-on of the Nikon AF-S DX 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR lens.
Dimensions
The Nikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens is sold with a hood and a soft lens case. At 18.7oz / 580g this lens weights as much as the 18-200 VRII lens – pretty light considering the zoom range. Size comparison: the 55-300 lens is thinner and a little bit longer than the full frame 28-300mm lens:
Except the product shots above, all photos were taken with a Nikon D300s (without a tripod) and without any post-processing. I wanted to show the images the way they came out of the camera. I used Lightroom 3 to convert and resize the original NEF to JPG files (no cropping). Most of the pictures were taken at 300mm – I can imagine that people will buy this lens because of its tele focal length, which currently provides the longest DX zoom available today. Expect better picture quality in the shorter focal lengths. For the record, this is a consumer lens, so set your expectations right.
It seems that for whatever reason Amazon will not be able to ship the Nikon D7000 on time and they are now offering $25 credit to existing pre-orders – not sure if this discount is valid for all pre-orders or only for those that cannot be shipped on time. This is the email that was sent just few minutes ago:
“Hello,
We’re writing to let you know there’s been an unexpected delay in shipping your Nikon D7000 Digital SLR Camera.
This camera has proven to have an extraordinary demand and we’re shipping orders as quickly as possible. At this time, we’re not sure of the exact date your camera will be shipped.
We’re very sorry about this, and to make up for the inconvenience, we’d like to offer you a $25 discount. You don’t have to do anything; the discount will be applied to your account when your camera ships.
We look forward to seeing you again soon.
Sincerely,
Customer Service Department
Nikon D7000 manual is now available online and you can download it directly here (PDF file) or pick your download option from Nikon Support website. 348 pages of D7000 goodness.
Some high ISO samples from the D7000 (read the flickr description for ISO information) – they are so good that I even question the authenticity of those images:
