D7100 replacement?

<p>I know the D7100 is a relatively recent model, but lets face it Nikon has been replacing models on a yearly basis lately. Anyway I'm interested in peoples opinions on when, and what will supplant the D7100, and who will be the sensor manufacturer. I think Sony has made the D5300 sensor, which seems to preform as well if not better than the D7100. They have been jumping around with sensor makers in the last few years even making their own on certain models. ;)</p>

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<p>..lets face it Nikon has been replacing models on a yearly basis lately</p>

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<p>No, only the entry-level models. Higher end models are on a lower frequency. We'll see when the D7100 will be replaced, what will replace it and the least relevant of all, who manufacters the sensor that'll sit inside it (never quite understood the fascination with that - as if it changes anything?). Photo.net isn't very good at being a rumour-spreading site. And that's not a bad thing.</p>

<p>Well, the D7100 is Nikon's oldest "current" model, though that hasn't stopped a lot of previous models still sitting on the shelves. It's definitively EXPEED 3-based, which means it can't shoot 1080p60, unlike the lower-end models. Sensorgen suggests a slight advantage in saturation to the 5300's Sony sensor over the D7100's Toshiba sensor, but the latter generally has slightly lower read noise. In dynamic range, the Toshiba sensor in the D7100 actually seems to do better.<br />

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So I'm not sure I'd worry about any sensor envy. Could they update AF? Well, there's the clustering mode added to the D4s and D810, but I'd expect it to be incremental. Handling? Well, they might add the highlight priority metering, but the D7100 already doesn't have the same cluster dial arrangement as the D810 or D4s, so that may not be major. They could add "small raw", but discussions of that format so far have been pretty critical.<br />

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The one really big thing that everyone seems to want is a bigger buffer. That would still leave a much lower frame rate than the SLT Sony, but I'm not sure that's an easy fix for a consumer-grade mirror box.<br />

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So if Nikon update the D7100 any time soon, I'd expect Expeed 4, 1080p60 and a somewhat bigger buffer. There's just not that much wrong with a D7100 that can be fixed within its market position (speaking as someone who doesn't own one, obviously). That's not much for the marketing team to bite into.<br />

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There's other stuff that could be done - make it bigger, give it D800-style handling, etc. - but that's no longer a D7x00 series camera. If Canon does a 7D2, maybe Nikon would respond with a more radical D7100 refresh, or maybe a higher-end model.<br />

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I'd be a little surprised if there was a major improvement in the D7100 that was not considered in the D4s or D810. (I doubt it'll shoot 4K video, for example.)<br />

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So, with the disclaimer that I know nothing (and nobody who does is going to say anything), I'd sort of expect a D7100 to refresh before other cameras just from its age, but I'm not seeing what they'd update it <i>with</i>. Unless Nikon decide to start playing with touch screens or the on-sensor phase detect game. It <i>is</I> a Photokina year, so I'd be surprised if a D7100 was launched just after the show; before it, I've no idea.<br />

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Does that help?<br />

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Edit:</p>

<blockquote>Photo.net isn't very good at being a rumour-spreading site. And that's not a bad thing.</blockquote>

<p>Indeed. I'm not sure it's harmful to point out current trends and let people draw their own conclusions (but caveat emptor). It might not be harmful to have a wish list (Nikon <i>might</i> listen...). But I certainly wouldn't want this thread to be "I've heard it's definitely..." (from the bloke down the pub). I work for a big company, and the one thing I can guarantee you is that <i>they change their minds</i>. Unless it's actually going to be launched within a week (and even then it's doubtful), there can be a lot of prototypes floating around, and they may or may not be representative of the final camera - things get changed, things get thrown away. This means not just that nobody with inside knowledge is going to be dumb enough to say anything, but that there probably is nobody who knows what will happen.<br />

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Perhaps I should have restricted myself to "if there <i>is</i> a D7100 successor, it will probably be black with a red dart on the front".</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00ceH8</p>

<p>If people find that they were not getting much useful information less than a month ago, I am afraid that another thread is not going to generate much new insight, as this type of threads never leads to much useful information, if at all.</p>

<p>Photokina starts in about two months. I would expect a flurry of new product announcements from all manufacturers, including Nikon, in the coming 6, 7 weeks or so. The D810 announcement was the first installment, and I think there will be more.</p>

Maybe Nikon will come to their senses and the successor

will improve on every aspect of the D300? Instead of the

two iterations we already had that give with one hand and

take away with the other?

 

Couldn't care less who makes the sensor - it's

irrelevant.

 

Expect a minor upgrade similar to D800 -> D810 - and hopefully more memory.

<p>In the rumourverse a 'D9300' body pitched above the D7x00 is mooted. Time will tell.</p>

<p>The rumourverse spent many years proposing the imminent release of a 5D2 before one happened (which bit me before I bought my D700). Variations on the "D400", "7D2", "3D" etc. have been around for years. I'm sure many things are prototyped, but whether any of it a) actually works, and b) is financially useful to launch is another matter. Nikon can't get retailers to sell all the SKUs they've already got.<br />

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Nikon will typically - but not always - respond to what Canon does, and vice-versa. Beyond that, any delusions I had of Nikon behaving predictably went away with the 1-series and the Df (and especially what they tried to charge for them).</p>

The best 7100 update is to modernize the 17-55 and stop with all of these 18-xxx consumer zooms. Enough already.

<p>Much like the Bushes Beans dog I think Shun knows more than he's letting on. He isn't talking so I propose thumb screws because he displays a suspicious lack of curiosity if you ask me.</p>

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<p>Much like the Bushes Beans dog I think Shun knows more than he's letting on.</p>

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<p>Sorry, but that is not the case at all. Currently I am not under any non-disclosure agreement with Nikon and have no Nikon information that is not already in the public domain. Otherwise, I probably would not post any answer to this thread just to make sure that I won't accidentally post something I shouldn't.</p>

<p>As Andrew Garrard pointed out earlier, among all "current" Nikon DSLRs, the D7100 is the "oldest" with the earliest announcement date. Therefore, you may suspect that it is also the next one to be updated. However, the D610 is more like a D600 without the sensor dust/oil issue and the bad press. Hence if you consider that the D610 is really just a D600, it would put its introduction several months before the D7100.</p>

<p>The bottom line is that you can start another 100 threads on this question, you are not going to get much useful information until Nikon announces something new. Sometimes I am indeed under NDA with facts and I read lots of mis-information and inaccuracy on those rumor sites; it makes me smile. I suspect they post some wrong information on purpose and then "corrections" just to string readers along to generate more web traffic.</p>

<p>However, as anybody who is familiar with Nikon products and announcements would, I expect Nikon has more new products to showcase in addition to the D810 at Photokina.</p>

 

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<p>In the rumourverse a 'D9300' body pitched above the D7x00 is mooted. Time will tell.</p>

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<p><br />Nikon introduced the D300 in August, 2007 and then the D300S in 2009 as a minor update with video and dual memory cards. They finally discontinued the D300S in late 2011 with no replacement besides the D7000/D7100, which are half a grade below. However, since 2009/2010 or so, there has been constant rumors about some D400 and more recently the model number was changed to D9300.</p>

<p>I wonder how much more time do people need before they realize that Nikon has no plan to continue the D200/D300/D300S-grade DX-format DSLRs?</p>

<p>HI Bruce for what reason do you want to know about the D7100 replacement? Just curiousity?</p>

<p>One new feature that would be nice would be an electronic first-curtain shutter. The D810 will have this and we can hope it filters on down to other Nikon models. With higher sensor resolution, levels of vibration that weren't a problem at one time can now degrade photo quality.</p>

<p>Yeah BeBu, I've just bought a D7100 and would have preferred a Sony Exmor sensor because it's generally considered superior to Toshiba's. Having said that I so far have not seen any evidence of the much talked about D7100 banding issue on another site. Having had a D7000, and more recently a D610 I've just become fond of Sony sensors and their shadow lifting abilities.<br>

In truth I'm quite happy with the D7100 thus far, but would probably like it even more with an Exmor.</p>

<p>So Bruce you would buy the D7200 if it has the Sony sensor although you bought the D7100 not too long ago? It seems very expensive to do so. </p>

<p>I checked DXO's tests of the D7100 and D5300 and dynamic range at ISO 100 is slightly better in the D5300 but at higher ISO settings (200 and up) the DR is better in the D7100 so the D7100 files should behave better when shadows are lifted (apart from ISO 100). Clearly Sony has no monopoly in sensor technology; Nikon seems to get good performance in their cameras irrespective of sensor manufacturer and yet Sony in their own cameras often have worse performance than Nikon using supposedly the same sensor base ... I think Nikon's own engineering and design has a considerable role in the image quality that they achieve in their cameras. I find the D7100's image quality excellent for a DX camera; although the tonal quality and detail isn't quite as rich as with D800 it is very, very good and the NEF files are easy to edit with good results. If anything the D800 has problems with pattern noise at ISO 6400 in the blue channel this becomes evident when shooting in warm artificial light and colour correcting the result; a lot of shadow noise appears with grid like pattern. It will be interesting to see if this problem has been solved in the D810 or if I need to get a 16MP Nikon to solve the problem. (In daylight and the bluish light of twilight the D800 is ok at ISO 6400 but it is for me much more common that I need ISO 6400 in artificial light than natural light).</p>

<p>Ilkka - funny you should mention that about the D800 - I just asked Daniel (who has a D810 on order) whether he can investigate this on the <a href="http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00cfUw">D810 announcement thread</a>. You may be able to elaborate on this better than I can, but I've had the same issue with the D800's blue channel in, admittedly, extreme conditions. Agreed about the lighting - with the exception of some relatives who did their wedding dance in a dimly-lit room, under vibrant blue lighting. (Great for noise handling, but in order to keep them from looking like smurfs I had to make everyone in the background - lit by candles and small incandescents - look like they were standing in the flames of hell. It was a "look", I guess.)<br />

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I really don't think I'd be worried about the sensor in any of Nikon's current DX range. Sensorgen's information shows very subtle differences - though the number of bits in the DAC may be more significant. Canon have (at least historically) a much bigger dynamic range issue, although the MagicLantern dual-read hack seems to help a lot. I can't vouch for how much Nikon had to do with the sensor, but Pentax have managed to keep them pretty honest. Canon and Samsung seem to be trailing a bit, though I can't say I've been following in detail. Not that DxO describes everything, of course.</p>

<p>Yeah BeBu, I would likely buy the D7200 if it had a Sony sensor. I would have to see how it tests out first, but if it was similar to past Exmor's yes I'd get it.<br>

Ilkka, I do believe the Sony sensors are a little better, and having owned the D7000, and D7100 I'm pretty confident of that. Of course it depends on what's important to you. For instance if higher resolution, and slightly better noise performance are most important to you then the D7100 would be your choice. On the other hand in the real world the D7000 does not have any banding issues when lifting shadows as the D7100 has in some cases. The D7100 also has a tendency to display a green tint in some shots rather than the blue normally seen in other models. This is a subjective thing, I mean which do you dislike more green, or blue, and for me it's green.<br>

All of that said, I think the D7100 is a great camera, and I'm not disappointed in it in the least. It's just different, but Sony does seem to have a technological edge in sensors.</p>