where there’s smoke there’s fire

Click on image for larger view:

We now have a LV button, dedicated info button… what else?

This post will be updated multiple times, check back again.

If the server starts smoking, I will move the updates to twitter.

11:22 pm – first NikonD3s picture

8:13 pm – Nikon USA is down: “We’ve encountered an error. We are working to fix the problem.”

6:47 pm – everything points to a single body (D3s) release tonight – no lenses, no compact camera, unless Nikon announces something directly from their labs with availability few months from now (highly unlikely). The next possible body announcement will be earliest in December (most probably first quarter of 2010) – Nikon will make sure they sell enough D3s before they announce another full frame DSLR. I guess lenses announcements can happened at any time.

6:26 pm – Nikon UK -> Press Room -> Images page has been removed: “The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.”

5:36 pm – I guess we still do not know for sure what is the second lens mounted on that D3s – the picture is from the D3s leak in Bacelona. Is it the 24-70 f/2.8?

5:28 pm – clarification about the countdown timer on top (since several readers have asked me): based on past releases, I think Nikon will update all of their websites at midnight tonight (US Eastern time). Once they did it @ 11pm. The updates around the words may vary, but this is the general time line. Of course I could be wrong. All of the events in Europe will happen after the websites are updated.

3:53 pm – BJP again! Did they forget to sign their NDAs this time? Quotes:

“The D3s is expected to be supplied to UK stores in early December, priced around £4200 for the body only.

“Movies are captured in HD quality 1280×720 pixel resolution at 24fps that can be trim edited in-camera, but most significantly, most of the camera’s still shooting functions – including ultra-high ISO settings – are available in the video mode, and single frames can be saved on the fly as JPEGs. Although these frames are of low resolution, they are sufficient for multimedia presentations, says Nikon, and could be used for newspaper print.”

“…results shot at ISO12,800 were particularly impressive…”

Everything else is “as expected”. Confirmed vibrating image sensor cleaner, improvements on correcting lateral chromatic aberrations, 14-bit A/D conversion, 16-bit image-processing, improved viewfinder… Thanks Uldo!

1:36 pm (US Eastern Time): British Journal of Photography speels the beans. Hurry up, this one won’t stay online for long (the article is dated with tomorrow’s date):

“Last week I travelled to St Andrews for the pre-launch of the Nikon D3s, a camera that can see what the eye cannot, by virtue of its extraordinary sensitivity to even the most low lit environments, boasting ‘standard’ ISO settings up to 12,800, and a boost mode up to 102,400 – something that would have been unfathomable to film photographers 20 years ago.”

Thanks for that one D!

According to a NikonRumors reader, there’s a full preview of the Nikon D3s in the French magazine “Responses photo” published today. The specs are:

• Anti-dust system.
• The max ISO is at 12 800 + an extra Hi3 mode (102 400 ISO)
• 9 fps (FX), 11 fps (DX)
• Video @ 720p 24 fps.
• Quiet mode.

Those specs are similar to what I have reported few days ago.

Update – here is a close-up:

Possible Nikon D3s caught during a video shoot in Barcelona. The D3s is mounted on a stabilization wheel. The camera name is taped:

Click on images for larger view.

Check the latest updates on the upcoming Nikon D3s here (the latest updates were not included in the RSS feed).