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Nikon Officially Announces the D4S, 16MP, $6500


ShunCheung

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<p>Back on January 6, Nikon had pre-announced the development of the D4S, but they provided few details: http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00cI3u<br /> The general description Nikon provided at that time sounds like some rather moderate improvements, as it is typical for S type updates.</p>

<p>To me, the surprises are:</p>

<ol>

<li>The price has gone further up by $500 to $6499.95.</li>

<li>The official announcement comes one day after the end of the Sochi Winter Olympics, instead of a few months before a major international sports event. However, I am sure that a number of sports photographers used pre-production versions at Sochi.</li>

</ol>

<p>It turns out that the D4S has quite a few improvements, although most of them are fairly minor, nice-to-have type enhancements. Here are some of the highlights:</p>

<ol>

<li>The D4S remains to be 16MP with a 4928×3280 RAW image, but Nikon has updated the sensor so that its ISO range is extended to ISO 25600 on the high end, one stop higher than the D4.</li>

<li>The processor is updated to the EXPEED 4, as the D3300 and D5300. According to Nikon, the processing power is 30% faster, such that the D4S can shoot at 11 fps, up from 10 fps for the D4.</li>

<li>RAW Size S: small size RAW: 2464×1640 or about 4MP</li>

<li>Auto Focus: still the Multi-CAM 3500 with 15 cross-type AF points, but there are some new AF modes, such as Group Area AF that uses one main AF point and its four adjacent AF points to track moving subjects.</li>

<li>The rear LCD has adjustable colors.</li>

<li>New EN-EL18a batter with higher capacity but still interchangeable with the original EN-EL18.</li>

<li>Memory cards: still 1 XQD + 1 CF</li>

<li>The D4S can capture 1080/60p video and deliver it uncompressed from its HDMI output. It can write video files onto both memory cards simultaneously in the backup mode.</li>

</ol>

<p>Nikon expects to start shipping the D4S on March 6, 2014. The FIFA World Cup (football/soccer) starts in June, so it is still over three months away.<br /> <br /> You can find <strong>photo.net's preview article</strong> here: http://www.photo.net/reviews/nikon-d4s-preview/</p>

<center><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17692203-md.jpg" alt="" />

<p>Nikon D4S with the 58mm/f1.4 AF-S Lens, news image copyright Nikon Inc.</p>

</center>

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<p>Even more £££? Crazy cash!</p>

<p>I wonder if RAW S can be retrofitted by a firmware update to others in the DSLR lineup? I can't see why not. Interesting it's only 12-bit.</p>

<p>It has an ethernet port rather than WiFi or GPS....odd combo.</p>

<p>So if this can do 11fps, a D7200 that can do 8fps won't steal any sales from it....as if it would!</p>

<p>Nikon USA D4S pages..</p>

<p>http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Product/Digital-SLR-Cameras/1541/D4S.html</p>

<p>LATE EDIT... to quote from above</p>

<p>IX NIKKOR lenses, lenses for the F3AF, and <strong>non-AI lenses</strong> cannot be used!</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The camera clock is powered by a separate, non-rechargeable CR1616 lithium battery with a life of about two years.<br>

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So by Easter 2016 the internal clock fails? Doh!</p>

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<p>I think this is the first time Nikon introduce a smaller RAW option. This is a very nice thing (for sure many D800 users would like to have it), but... on a 16Mp and given the current standards, I wonder if it is just another nice thing "for free" or a really interesting and demanded option.<br /> It takes me to the D2H times. Maybe that`s good for photojournalists on the go, I don`t know. As usual, the "flagship" looks to be the most perfect camera ever, always big and heavy.</p>
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<p>Why do they insist on keeping the name CAPTURE, when it's patently obvious that's something it cannot do?</p>

<p>Camera Control Pro 2...well yes it does <em>Control.</em></p>

<p>View NX2...Well yes it does <em>Browse/Edit/Share </em>AKA View.</p>

<p>Capture...no it doesn't! As in, 'Go <em>CAPTURE</em> the Moment' ...2 days later on a PC or Mac..:-(</p>

<p>However, I might go and download the beta of Capture NX-D, just to see how good it is compared to DxO 8.</p>

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<p><em>Even more £££? Crazy cash!</em></p>

<p>I'm sure they'd find credit card quite agreeable. ;-)</p>

<p><em>It takes me to the D2H times.</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

Well not exactly; the high ISO noise is likely to be quite a bit less. ;-)</p>

<p><em>I wonder if RAW S can be retrofitted by a firmware update to others in the DSLR lineup? I can't see why not. Interesting it's only 12-bit.</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

It would be something we can probably expect on the successor to the D800, perhaps in combination with higher fps. For printing on newspaper and display on mobile devices, or on social media, even 4MP is plenty. The world is quite a strange place - on one hand we have ever increasing pixel counts in the cameras (e.g. 36MP), yet more and more images are used on tinier than tiny screens and transferred over very slow wireless networks.</p>

<p><em>It has an ethernet port rather than WiFi or GPS....odd combo.</em></p>

<p>One problem at large sports venues (such as the Olympics) is that there will be so many who want to use WiFi during the game that it might not work at all. Nikon's WT-5 is really tiny if you need it and has much greater range than many in-built devices for those situations where there are fewer photographers working in the same area at the same time. Another factor to consider is that some photographers have specifically requested for more modularity rather than having everything built in. The Ethernet port allows fast transfer to a laptop for image selection and quick editing and then the selects can be viewed on a proper monitor, before being sent out (after the game, when wireless transfers will work better, presumably). Mobile broadband is more likely to work than WiFi, but even then there might be so many people who want to surf online that that might not work either.</p>

<p><em>So if this can do 11fps, a D7200 that can do 8fps won't steal any sales from it....as if it would!</em></p>

<p>The question is whether the D7100 (or its sucessor) has the ruggedness of shutter and mirror assembly that is needed for prolonged high fps shooting. I suspect it might not and that could be the real reason Nikon did not give a larger buffer on the D7100. I hope they do make a D7200 with a larger buffer; I find the D7100 otherwise very attractive.</p>

<p><em>Why do they insist on keeping the name CAPTURE, when it's patently obvious that's something it cannot do?</em></p>

<p>It is the software Nikon makes for initial post-processing of captured image files, e.g. to do capture sharpening etc. (which is mostly the sharpness setting in the picture control settings, but other tools are provided as well). Three processing steps - first is to make the image look acceptable and compensate for the loss in fidelity due to AA filter and lens (capture sharpening), the second is the point where artistic adjustments are made to the image (e.g. local contrast adjustment, layer masks with selective processing, etc), and finally third stage, preparation to final print (print sharpening). 'Capture' in the software name suggests it is only meant to be used in the initial steps of post-processing.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p><em>Even more £££? Crazy cash!</em><br>

I'm sure they'd find credit card quite agreeable. ;-)</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>If I can't afford the cash, I can't buy it!* I wasn't bought up with, what is commonly called, the 'Never Never'..:-)</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The question is whether the D7100 (or its successor) has the ruggedness of shutter and mirror<br>

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Bit retro, but they must have a box or 2 of old D2H shutters/mirrors around....11 year old tech, but that could manage 8fps all day...and as for buffers, I know it's a different type, but RAM is cheap.<br>

<br>

An extra $20 for a fast shutter and $50 for a sensible RAM buffer....they drop the price of new cameras by much more than that after about 3 months. It's a daft policy in my mind.<br>

<br>

Since FX arrived Nikon are actively choosing to cripple their newer DX cameras.</p>

<p>* The only exception being houses!</p>

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<p>Well, I wasn't expecting much, and they delivered.<br />

<br />

I know there'll be big lens sales going with it, but I'm not sure how much money Nikon actually make from the flagship single-digit series. My understanding has been that the halo effect is more important. From that perspective, the D4s really surprises me - and the problem is the 1Dx.<br />

<br />

The D4s has upgraded the mirror so the autofocus can run at 11fps, unlike the D4. Fine, but the 1Dx can do 12fps (and 14 with mirror lock up). The D4s has tweaked the autofocus - but it's still using the same multicam 3500 with all the cross points in the middle, whereas the 1Dx has them distributed. The D4s's native ISO limit has gone to 25,600, up from the 12,800 on the D4 - but still below the 51,200 of the 1Dx (the "expanded mode" goes to 409,600, vs the 1Dx's 204,800, admittedly). They've slightly tweaked the controls, but not copied Canon's "replicate the front buttons" trick. Oh, and the 1Dx has a couple more megapixels, of course. It can do 1080p60, which the 1Dx can't. But so can some phones; so can the 1Dc, which can also do 4k (and... so can some phones) which the D4s can't. The 1Dx also has a bigger finder view and a higher-res LCD.<br />

<br />

I'm not saying that the D4s - or even the D4 - is necessarily a worse camera in the field than the 1Dx, but the reason I was expecting a D4 refresh sooner rather than later was that the "halo effect" of the top model in the line works better if the aspiring masses can look at the specs and say "ooh". The D4 loses to the 1Dx in top trumps in almost every category (except possibly buffer size - I've not been following the high-end models, but this rings a bell - but they're not shouting much about that), and the D4s doesn't actually fix this in <i>any</i> category. The D4 does have a dynamic range advantage at ISOs of 1600 and below, but then so do much more "consumer" cameras - and, at some resolution cost, the Magic Lantern "dual ISO" hack helps recover some of the dynamic range.<br />

<br />

Getting the higher-profile photographers who've switched to Canon to move back is another problem, but I was really expecting Nikon to try to steal some spec figures from the 1Dx. I'm very surprised that they didn't pull out all the stops to make this happen at least in some areas - maybe they're really not selling many to journalists any more. For now, I'm still kind of expecting a D5 sooner rather than later, still because Canon have the spec lead.<br />

<br />

Of course, the sensor could be magic. But we're not so far short of theoretical limits, so I'm not expecting a D3s-style huge jump (though I'd expect the D4 to gain a bit on the 1Dx where the latter has a small high-ISO advantage). If there <i>is</i> a significant advantage, and I'm always happy to be proven wrong (I'm happy a lot), I think Nikon should get a camera to DxO as soon as possible. But maybe journalists are sufficiently obsessed with JPEG shooting for delivery time reasons - something that I don't personally do much - that all the secret sauce is in the JPEG side; Canon certainly seem to have pushed this hard.<br />

<br />

On the other hand, I'm genuinely excited that Nikon have <i>finally</i> had a go at a small raw. Shame it's not in the D800 - and (while I'm terrible at predicting) I'm not expecting a D800 successor in a hurry - but at least it's in the pipeline. If they roll out a BIOS update for the D800 which adds this, I'll drop off a box of chocolates at Nikon UK...<br />

<br />

Anyway. I'm not in the market for a D4s (or a D4, or a 1Dx), so I should probably completely ignore the announcement - I certainly don't know what real customers find high-priority. But I was hoping to be a bit more excited: the halo model is supposed to make you go "wow", not "meh". I certainly don't imagine that the market is about to flood with used D4 bodies so that I can pick one up cheap.<br />

<br />

Oh, and Ken has finally stopped claiming 24MP. :-)</p>

 

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<p>There's probably enough in the D4s to make me want to upgrade from two D3s bodies, but since I need <em>two</em> bodies, they're just too expensive. If, however, I could easily sell the two D3s bodies I own, and only had to hand over $6,000 cash to get two new D4s bodies, I'd probably do it. Here's the D4s features which most piqued my interest as a D3s owner:</p>

<p>• Possible +0.5-1.0 EV low-light improvement over D4.<br /> • Automatic-repositioning AF-point, based on orientation.<br /> • Gigabit Ethernet port.<br /> • Auto-ISO in manual mode.<br /> • 16MP sensor yields a bit more available detail for large group shots.<br /> • AF-ON also activates VR.<br /> • Illuminated buttons.<br /> • Slightly improved ergonomics.<br /> • EXPEED 4.<br /> • Improved battery life.</p>

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<p>Ralph: Bear in mind that the battery on the D4s is much smaller than the one in the D3s. You get more life than the D4, but the D3s still has the edge.<br />

<br />

I'll believe 1EV over the D4 when I see it - we're near enough theoretical bounds that this much would surprise me. But fingers crossed. You do get some low-ISO dynamic range over the D3s (from a D4 - I trust the D4s is similar).<br />

<br />

I'm <i>sure</i> auto-ISO works in manual mode on the D3s. The D700 and D800e behave the same here - though the extra auto-ISO configuration for aperture priority is nice to have.<br />

<br />

As a D800 owner, I'd like the AF point repositioning and the illuminated sensors. I'm not so sure about the ergonomics - particularly how the AF mode is set. I've briefly played with a D4 and found the grip so deep I could barely reach the programmable buttons, not an issue I have with the F5 or my memory of a brief play with a D3, but you may have longer fingers. You're probably right not to run a D3s alongside a D4s - switching between a D700 and D800, the swapped +/- buttons and AF switch drove me nuts.<br />

<br />

If you get one, I'll be interested in how you find it. (And if you resort to throwing a D3s away, I'll give one a good home!)</p>

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<p>Andrew said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>I'm sure auto-ISO works in manual mode on the D3s.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, whaddya know! It does! I only just started using auto-ISO since I bought my Nikon Coolpix 'A'. I just tried it on my D3s, and it works perfectly well in manual mode! I even have exposure-compensation active (however, with only one dial). I wonder why the DPreview "first impressions" article touts it as a "new" feature of the D4s?</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Another small change worth mentioning is the [D4s'] ability to use the Auto ISO feature while in manual exposure mode." --DPreview: Nikon D4s First Impressions</em></p>

</blockquote>

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<p>Andrew said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>I'll believe 1EV over the D4 when I see it - we're near enough theoretical bounds that this much would surprise me.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Agreed. For reference, here's the DxO low-light "sports" data for the current Nikon low-light champs:<br /> <br /> Nikon D<em>f</em>: 3,279<br /> Nikon D3s: 3,253<br /> Nikon D4: 2,965<br /> <br /> I would venture to guess a 1/3rd-stop increase at best.</p>

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There are those photographers for whom "more megapixels aren't everything." I'm not one of those photographers- I like

to make big prints with bottomless resolution. Make me a high-resolution camera- I don't need to shoot at ISO 4,000,002.

 

I understand Nikon chasing the still large- though shrinking- press photographer market. That said, how has Nikon not

introduced a flagship with an updated version of the D800-variant sensor? Nikon couldn't help but sell more high-

resolution professional cameras than, say, the Df, which answered a question no one was asking and is a waste of

Nikon's limited production capacity.

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<p><strong>"That said, how has Nikon not introduced a flagship with an updated version of the D800-variant sensor?"</strong><br>

<strong> </strong><br>

<strong><br /></strong>Probably because it would be tough to get 11fps. from a 36 MP sensor at the moment. Canon and Nikon's flagships have always put a priority on speed and low light performance over maximum megapixel size. Press and field photographers don't necessarily want to deal with excessively large file sizes either, and that is who these camera's are geared for. </p>

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<p>If I needed one this would work just fine. As for the price increase over the D4 I am sure that the price will drop in time. I use a D4 for my work and it is an amazing camera. I have used a 1DX for a short period of time and it to is an amazing camera for even more money. If the D4s or the 1DX is the camera you need then the price is a moot point.</p>

<p>So Eric if you want to make big prints with bottomless resolution stop shooting a 35mm based DSLR pony up some serious money and buy a Hasselblad digital. If that is to much money then live with the paltry 36 MP of the D800</p>

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<p>D800 starting price was $3000. 36mp. DxO ISO rating 2853,</p>

<p>D4S starting price is $6500. 16mp. DxO ISO rating 2965.....ie the same!</p>

<p><em><strong>If</strong></em> pixel count was a high priority, you'd think the D800 should be more expensive, except it's well under half the price. The cost to make it go 'faster' is minimal and can't justify that huge price. The higher res sensor cost used to be the reason for price rises. Someone above said, Nikon don't sell many high-end DSLRs, I'm not surprised! (A downsampled D800 image to D4 size isn't too shabby (better) ISO wise either) Maybe the D4S really is better??</p>

<p>Sure, there are some money-no-object Nikon fanboys out there who simply MUST HAVE the latest, but the D4S is a working camera and there are lots of people who'd like to work with one except they're priced for the mega-rich. I think the Nikon pricing structure is getting far, far too top heavy.</p>

<p>They've ended the hi-end DX sport camera and now you've either got to go buy an 'old', ie not current FX model, or pony-up over $6500. They're cutting their own throats. Nikon shouldn't worry about making last generation cameras dead-in-the-water sales wise (as typified by the D3X being pointless after the D800 came out) and price they're new cameras to sell.</p>

<p>Now in a simplistic way, once you've paid your R&D and your tooling costs, making 20,000 units isn't much more than making 10,000. The actual CMOS sensor cost remains high, because it's tricky and wasteful, but the rest is pennies.</p>

<p>So why not make the price $5000 and sell another 10,000 units? I think Nikon are just pricing themselves out of the market for such a relatively small upgrade. Sure charge $6500 for the D5, but for an upgrade, nah.</p>

<p>PS. Would anyone in the US think of paying the <strong>$8500</strong> needed to buy this camera in Europe?</p>

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<p>This looks to me like an update aimed at how AP/Getty covered the Olympics - they wired all the venues with cat-6 for ethernet and had a back-of-house set up that could take JPGs straight from the field as they were being shot and have images on the servers in a few minutes. The Canon 1DX already has wired ethernet, so Nikon had to have that for the Olympics or be left out of most of the action.Canon's already got a majority of the market for major sports and one of the services shoots only Canon (I forget which) while the other mixes brands, so if Nikon couldn't fit a camera into that workflow (which was planned out a few years in advance) they risked being left out entirely.</p>

<p>The rest of the new features also look like Nikon worked with the services to optimize the camera for that type of work. More speed, wired ethernet, new AF mode that's great for catching a snowboarder mid-air. The small raw is probably to give them a more reasonable raw alternative in case they want to adopt it, because regular raw files are too large for the speed of working that the services want.</p>

<p>Going forward, there's going to be increasing demand for this sort of workflow. I can imagine that soon a lot more sports venues will be wired, with back of house at the main offices. That's the market Nikon wants for this camera. They'll sell a bunch to those customers, who won't sweat an extra $500 (and don't buy at retail anyway) while everybody else can buy a D4 from inventory at $6000. In fields that value resolution over speed and don't have a close-to-real-time workflow you can have a D800.</p>

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<p>The D4 has always had Ethernet so this is not a new feature.</p>

<p>The D4X doesn't exist because there is an ever smaller market for the large, highly environmentally sealed, robust camera as most people prefer small and inexpensive cameras. Nikon can justify making one high end camera with the D4 chassis type; in the past they made two (X and H/S models) but photographers did better economically at that time than they are doing today. To choose whether Nikon should make either the high speed, or the high resolution camera in the D4 chassis and the other in the D800 chassis, they determined empirically that the high resolution of the D800 attracts a far larger customer population in a small housing, and so the high speed camera is now only offered in the D4(s) to make it possible to economically manufacture the large camera at all.</p>

<p>Now, whether the D4(s) chassis is needed or not, I can say that my experiences using various Nikons in Nordic winter conditions is that the D3/D3X seem to be more reliable in high humidity, cold environments than the D700/D800 which would frequently lock up (in fact just last week I got three different error messages and lockups with my D800, when I was doing winter landscape photography in the North, whereas the D3X didn't give the slightest hint of complaint). The D700 also locked up several times when I was photographing ice formations some years ago with the camera positioned 10cm above the lake surface in the winter. What can I say? If the high priced robust camera were not manufactured at all, there would be greater uncertainties in my photography and some instances a technical problem would prevent the capture of images. Yes, the large body type cameras are expensive but in some environments they are more likely to work reliably. Whether it is an injustice that there are expensive, good tools available that only some people can afford, I cannot answer, but they're not priced high for no reason at all; it is so that the people who make the cameras can get paid and can afford to buy food for their children etc. Also so that the people who invested in the Nikon company get some return for their investment and don't have to pull their financing out.</p>

<p>A better option than complain about the price of the new product is to buy a used D4/D3s if you need this type of a camera; some cameras of this type were only subjected to light usage and are available on the second hand market. If it bothers you that these cameras don't have quite the latest features then that's just something you'll have to live with, in life you don't always get everything that you could want, and if you could, it is likely you'd just move onto wanting something else that you can't afford and complain about the costs associated with those. An unhappy person is likely to continue being unhappy irrespective of circumstances whereas those who are satisfied with less tend to be happy and continue that way until the day they die.</p>

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Oh, I thought that ethernet was new. But my experience only extends to the D3 and the 700 and 800. I take back what I

said before :) So really we've got a few new features, nothing to make most people sell their D4 and run out and get the

new one, but it's a mid-cycle update anyway.

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<p>one of the things that's been overlooked in this whole discussion is that the shrinking pool of working press photographers dont buy their own cameras much of the time; if they work for a paper, they use the paper's equipment. so that's who nikon is hoping to milk by pricing the camera at $6500 rather than, say, $5000.</p>

<p>freelancers and stringers do often have to buy their own gear, and possibly the upgrades will be more meaningful to them, if they enhance rapid transfer of images, which is one of the things nikon addressed. but those prices will cut most of the enthusiasts out, especially with the d800 being $3k and offering more resolution.</p>

<p>but for current D3s owners, like myself, there's not enough there there to justify the huge cost, although if you sell your D3s--used prices vary widely, but most bodies are in the $3k-$3500 range--you'd recoup about half the cost of a new body.</p>

<p>what makes this difficult is that the returns are clearly diminishing as far as functionality over the D3s with both the d4 and d4s; except for video and connectivity, the improvements have been incremental, and the next quantum leap will probably be the d5. but if you wait for that release, the d3s will have lost another chunk of its resale value.</p>

<p>what would make everyone happy would be the d4 sensor in a d700 body at the $2500-$3000 price point. but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.</p>

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<p>Illka, wise words indeed. </p>

<p>But AFAIK, Nikon makes absolutely ZERO money with me going secondhand.</p>

<p>I'd like to buy NEW and put some cash into Nikon's R&D budget, but there's no choice to be made. It's a kinda ALL or NOTHING scenario at the moment for Sports/Action shooting.</p>

<p>Now I know the members here and on other fora, are not NORMAL from Nikon's demographic viewpoint, but there's been such a 'Where's The D400?' and 'the D7100 isn't fast enough with too shallow a buffer' etc, etc, that if only 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 actually bought a D400 for $2000 (the D7100 was announced at $1200) Their cashflow would be happier. The D300 came out in 2007 for $1800</p>

<p>If they think a $2000 D400 is going to steal sales from the new D4S @ $6500, they might be right. But that's only because the D4S is way overpriced!</p>

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