Konstantin's Adventures

This Nikon product roadmap for the coming year is either the real deal or a fanboy fantasy. Bubbling up onto the internet through a fissure in the Czech forum Grafika On-Line, the document supposedly originates in the UK from an anonymous source at a company that provides Nikon UK with IT services.

The huge 37 page document details Nikon’s planned releases until the end of 2010. It’s copied and pasted below for your perusal, but here’s a quick list.

2009

Nikon D3000
12.3MP
7 AF points
ISO 200-3200 extendable to 6400
3.5fps
Video unknown

Nikon D300s
12.3MP
7fps
HD video (1080p .mov h.264, 24fps)
CF and SD cards slots
920,000 pixel LCD screen

D700x
24.5MP
5fps
HD video (1080p .mov h.264, 24fps)

Plus a bunch of new lenses, mostly updating older classics with new G-version, the ones that come without an aperture ring, and adding internal autofocus motors to work with lower end models. These will be:

AF-S Nikkor 24 to 135 mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II
AF-S Nikkor 35 mm f/1.4G
AF-S Nikkor 85 mm f/1.4G

Then, 2010. Here come the big ones:

Nikon D4
15.7MP (more sensitive and with less noise)
Up to 16fps with “double exposure”
ISO 200-12800 (plus extended range)
61-point AF
1080p video at 30fps
CLS control (although no flash is mentioned)

Nikon D400
13.8MP (more sensitive and with less noise)
8fps
Up to 12fps with “double exposure”
ISO 200-6400 (plus extended range)
61-point AF
1080p video at 24fps

Nikon D4x
30.2MP
ISO 100 – 6400
6fps
1080p video at 30fps

Plus lenses for 2010

AF-S Nikkor 14 to 28 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED
AF-S Nikkor 120 to 450 mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR
AF-S Nikkor 300 mm f/4G VR
Nikkor AF-S VR 400 mm f/5.6G
AF-S Nikkor 70 to 240 mm f/3.5-4.5G VR
AF-S Nikkor 105 mm f/2G DC
AF-S Nikkor 24 to 85 mm f/4G VR
AF-S DX Nikkor 60 to 95 mm f/2G VR
AF-S DX Nikkor 17-60 mm f/2.8G VR

The oddities here are the video modes. 24p (p for “per” second in this case) is the preferred speed for pros as it matches film. It seems odd, then, the the top end D4 would run at 30fps and the cheaper bodies at 24p.

That the pixel-count has hardly jumped is a good thing, and shows that limiting the D3 and D700 to “just” 12MP hasn’t hurt sales.

Both the D4 and D400 have an unexplained “Double Exposure” feature on the list. This, combined with mentions of double histograms in this mode, hints at an in-camera HDR capability. It looks like the cameras will snap two pictures in quick succession and combine them to make one image with a huge exposure latitude. This would be the first time we have seen this in a DSLR. We have seen this in the Pentax K7. (Thanks to everyone who pointed this out).

Another interesting addition is the promise of “The possibility of the electronic image projection or additional information to the entire area of a large viewfinder”. This would, we presume, act like the frame-blocking of the D3, which crops out the edges of the viewfinder when using a DX lens, or like the overlay of a grid on the viewfinder screen on the same camera. A live, in-finder histogram? Yes please.

It all seems to be pedestrian enough to be real, with some genuine puzzlers thrown in there — like the dual histogram — to add authenticity. I’m going to say that this is looks legit. We’ll start to see if this is true in August, when the first prediction – the D300 – should appear.

One thing is notable by its absence, though: the D800, or updated D700. That makes me happy, as I won’t be getting upgrade envy anytime soon. Full list, copied and pasted from the forum, below.

Shutterfly – Another good photo sharing site. I usually use this as a backup and also as a print center. They make pretty good quality prints for a decent price.