Nikon Targets To Produce 30,000 D800 and 5,000 D4 Per Month

<p>Nikon is targeting to produce 30,000 D800 and 5,000 D4 cameras per month at its factory in Sendai, Japan; the only Nikon factory worldwide producing the D800 and D4 models: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsbusiness.php?id=644921<br>

This would contradict the information posted here earlier that the D800 is produced in Thailand.</p>

<p>My D300 is made in Thailand. My D700 in Japan....... No difference in quality..... If my D700 was made in Thailand I would had still bought it.....</p>

<p>Rene', I had intended my post just as an "FYI" - the place of production is irrelevant to me - just as long as they are being produced at the standard of quality one expects from Nikon.<br /> 5,000 D4 a month doesn't seem to be such a high number - if I recall correctly, the monthly production for the D3 at introduction was 12,000. Does anyone have production numbers for the D700?</p>

<p>Dieter, thanks for the link. Interesting information. </p>

<p>The production numbers are said to be "targets" and presumably will be adjusted to actual demand accordingly. </p>

<p>The initial production for the D3 was 8000 units a month, and Nikon soon increased that to 10000 a month: <a href="http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1000&thread=26153445">http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1000&thread=26153445</a></p>

<p>5000 seems to be very low for the D4, and 30K units a month seems very high for Sendai. I'll re-check the manufacturing location for the D800 with Nikon.</p>

<p>Rene' - quite. I appreciate that some low-production-run products are made in Japan and bulk production is elsewhere, but I can't imagine that the quality changes measurably when a single item is made in more than one place. I feel a little ill every time I read KR's reviews and note that the "quality" section lists the manufacturing location.</p>

<p>If accurate, that's $ 90 millionUSD/month for the D800 and $ 30 millionUSD/month for the D4.<br>

Decent gross sales!</p>

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<p><em>"Decent gross sales!"</em></p>

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<p>"Decent" is always relative. It's net earnings that matters. :-) </p>

<p>IMHO when D3 was introduced the request was much higher that the one currently for D4. D3 was a revolutionary camera in comparison with previous D2 class. While D4 is a great camera the step forward from D3S is not so impressive. In the same time D3 was the only FX body manufactured at that time, D700 coming on the market a year later. Despite the fact D800 is not a direct competitor of D4 its huge impact has many reasons... almost all D700 owners wants to upgrade... many people who pre-ordered a D4 are pre-ordering a D800 as well... a good number of Canon shooters are considering to change the camp... :) and last but not least D800 is so attractive that I've heard around many people who were in DX camp willing to go in FX camp. So D800 will sell very well at least one year from now. In fact this time not D4 is the revolutionary camera but the less expensive D800... and the choice with or w/o AA filter is the cherry on the top of the cake.</p>

<p>I believe that a smart move from Nikon would be next year, after most people will already upgrade to D4 and / or D800 to bring on the market a D800 like body with D4 sensor and ISO performance... I put my hand in fire that most D800 owners will buy the D4 lite version as well and this will not kill D4 sales that are targeted to a narrow group but will boost Nikon profit. So it would be a very smart move than instead to give us an upgrade of D700 with better fps, better ISO an more MP (the one we all expected) Nikon to give us at a year distance two D700's upgrades: one in MP and video, the other in speed and ISO... Who can resist to not buy such as "evil" offer?</p>

<p>The D3 was Nikon's first FX camera so it sold well for a camera of its price (the D3s seems to have been an even bigger hit judging from what I've seen out there). Now many people already have FX cameras and because they're all pretty good the urgency to upgrade to D4 is just not there. I think also that Nikon is thinking that most people wants the high resolution of the D800 and therefore scaled production like that. The predicted high sales numbers of D800 units also why they can make it at such a low price. Me, I think my pixel counts will top at 24MP and I will wait for something more practical than 36MP (although as I've said many times I have no doubt that the resolution realized can be very high I don't really want/need it; what I want is less time waiting for the computer in post-processing and more free time to do shooting while still getting improvements in picture quality).</p>

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<p>Me, I think my pixel counts will top at 24MP and I will wait for something more practical than 36MP (although as I've said many times I have no doubt that the resolution realized can be very high I don't really want/need it; what I want is less time waiting for the computer in post-processing and more free time to do shooting while still getting improvements in picture quality).</p>

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<p>I predict that Ilkka Nissila will purchase either a D800 or D800E within 2012. :-)<br>

He will also purchase a more powerful computer to go along with the camera.</p>

<p>BTW, I still haven't been able to confirm whether the D800 is manufactured at Sendai or Thailand. There are a few reports from people who have recently toured the Sendai facility that they are producing 30K units of D800/D800E a month there. There is no reason to believe that those reports are all wrong. But I also find it strange that Nikon gave us the wrong information earlier.</p>

<p>I won't be buying a new computer, my computer is May 2011 (i7-2600 8GB RAM) and the only easy room for improvement would be the speed of my mass storage ... but unfortunately I cannot afford turning my 7TB into all SSD ;-) In performance tests that I've run on my computer it does very well. But D3X NEF files can still take significant time to process through. I'm quite happy with the raw conversion times for the D700/D3 NEFs though, they're in the desired 1s ball park. Not that I am using the D700 much any more.</p>

<p>As for the D800 I don't know. Its price makes it attractive but it's not quite as inexpensive as it might seem. The 2700€ initial price, add update to Photoshop so that I get ACR to support the new camera costs money (200-300€?), custom L bracket 200€, vertical grip (I don't know what happened to me but I have come to prefer the square body most of the time) 400€ and D4 battery 160€ (potentially very useful for winter photography). I would estimate the real cost to be in the 3500-3700€ ball park + cost of 50% more storage per file for future data. It's not a trivial cost in any case. I think I'll be satisfied with my "old tech" cameras for now. End of 2012 is way too far away to speak about that though. ;-)</p>

<p>FWIW, Thom Hogan posted a confirmation on February 12 that both the D4 and the D800 are produced in Sendai, Japan: http://www.bythom.com/. He also confirmed the numbers: 5K D4 and 30K D800 per month</p>