14 DAY TRIAL // We talked about Canon and their latest EOS 1Ds Mark III and EOS 40D, we talked about Sony and their upcoming advanced and professional models, but one company managed to keep its new products hidden from the media. And they are still succeeding in it.
Scarce details and tons of speculations on the new Nikon DSLRs emerged, but Nikon remained silent. However, over the last two days, an increasing number of sites/forums have revealed that the second largest manufacturer of DSLRs is preparing "something" on August 23 or 24.
Judging from the rumor mill, that "something" consists of the D3 and the D300. These two are the replacements of the extremely old D2X and the not so old D200, respectively.
Processing all the information, one can finally have an image of what to expect from the next Nikon announcement. Apparently, the Nikon D3 will have a proprietary full-frame LBCAST CMOS sensor with 14 megapixels (although some are saying 12 or 16).
The camera will have a switch allowing photographers to choose between full-frame and the 1.5x crop factor format. For those of you who are not familiar with the technical mumbo jumbo, this means that you will be able to use both "normal" 35mm lenses and DX lenses designed for the aforementioned 1.5x crop factor.
Compared to Canon, this would be a great advantage. The makers of the newly announced 1Ds Mark III are currently working with three formats: 35mm full-frame, APS-H with 1.3 crop factor and APS-C with 1.6 crop factor. Photographers must use EF lenses for the first two and are able to use both EF and the digital EF-S units for the last. If you are a Nikon user and have a bunch of DX lenses in the bag you won't be forced to sell them away should you purchase the full-frame DSLR. You just use the mythical switch. The continuous mode speed will also be influenced by this. For full frame, the camera would be able to go up to 9 frames per second while for the cropped mode it would reach a whopping 11 fps. In terms of ISO range, the D3 would be able to go between 200-6400 with extra modes for ISO 100 and ISO 25600 (this can't possibly be true).
The last and most unlikely spec of the D3 is the autofocus module. Supposedly, the new unit will have no less than 51 points, which is slightly more than Canon's 45-point module, but a humongous change compared to D2X's 11-point module.
The second on the list, the D300, is rumored to incorporate the new Sony CMOS with 12 megapixels and to be able to go up to six frames per second, with an ISO sensitivity ranging from 200-3200 and extra modes for ISO 100 and ISO 6400.
Aside from the two DSLRs, Nikon also supposedly has five new lenses, all full-frame and all fitted with autofocus motors (the meaning of the AF-S). These are: 14-24mm f/2.8 G AF-S, 24-70mm f/2.8 G AF-S, 400mm f/2.8 G AF-S VR, 500mm f/4 G AF-S VR, 600mm f/4 G AF-S VR.
Now, these all look good, but keep in mind that they are just rumors. It's possible that Nikon's future pro and advanced DSLRs will be completely different from the specs circulating on the Internet.
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