Tired of waiting for a D4 - D3s?

<p>I currently have a D700 with grip that I have loved for 2+ years and have had a D4 fund ready to go for a while now but getting tired of waiting for Nikon. I am a wedding shooter and shoot at least 50 weddings and other commercial projects each year. I feel that my workhorse D700 is getting tired and ready to be put into 2nd camera backup duty.<br /> Should I just get a D3s in the meantime? I allow myself a new camera every year or two - but not sure if it is worth it to wait. I am waaay overdue.<br /> I doubt I would sell the D3s as the D700 & D300 would likely go if I ever get the D4, whenever that is.<br /> D@mnit Nikon, you are making this really hard!<br /> Thoughts, opinions, suggestions?</p>

<p>the only way to speed Nikon's release of the D4 is if you purchase a D3 RIGHT NOW so help us all out :)</p>

<p>You should wait. Your D700 is not tired, you are just tired of it. You have NAS. Have a drink, breath deeply, relax and your D700 will serve you well for a long time yet.</p>

<p>I should mention that it is also a tax thing as well so I can write it off for this year. Any rumors for a 2010 D4 release? If not, I might just go for it. My D700 is just not as snappy as it once was. I should mention that as of today it has a shutter count of 170252.<br>

NAS?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Any rumors for a 2010 D4 release?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think, at this point, we can safely conclude that Nikon will not release a D4 in 2010.</p>

<p>This is just my $0.02, you can have change if you like :) <br />The D700 seems to have stopped production many months ago (maybe that's common knowledge but I don't keep up on it too much) no one has had inventory of it for some months and now it's the same with the D3s. They're all back ordered and unavailable... meaning Nikon needs to get something to market yesterday, and they fully expected to have it on the market by this time.</p>

<p>The camera that makes the most sense to release first is the D4, maybe Nikon will pick up those waiting for the D800 w/extra money. I don't think it makes as much sense to release both at/near the same time and have the D800 interfere with sales of the D4.</p>

<p>Either way, it should've been released months ago especially now that Nikon has had no inventory of the D700 or D3s for some time now they need something.</p>

<p>Andrew, nobody knows when Nikon is supposing to release a D4. Definitely many are impatient and have the funds at hand so I guess that It would be hard for months to get it after the announcement.<br /> If money are not a big problem for you, and seems to not be, go for D3s and be happy with it. D3s is already a huge step up and if next year you'll go for D4 it will make a perfect combo.<br /> IMHO D4 will be at least a 24 MP camera because of the crazy race of MP. I have a hard time to believe that Nikon can double the number of pixels keeping the same good ISO behavior like in D3s. So you'll have a 12MP camera with great behavior in low light and a state of the art 24 MP camera (or whatever will be) with the last bells and whistles, bla, bla, bla... And in the meantime you will enjoy a great camera (D3s) helping the economy, helping Nikon and helping our dreams :)</p>

<p>Later edit: @Arthur - Nikon Europe is constantly feeding Nikon Romania with D3s and D700. So I guess that the two are still in production. US market is much bigger and probably the supply is not enough and you have the impression that the production ceased. I believe Nikon will offer these bodies as long will be a request on the market. Believe me or not but you can still buy D90 new here.</p>

<p>Not in 2010?... That's just a malicious rumour.....You should be ashamed of yourself for making so-many Nikonistas sad... ;-)</p>

<p>ok, well then I guess it is time to get my new D3s. Would the D3s be a big step up from the D700?<br>

Also, as a NPS member I usually get first shot at new releases - but not that it really means anything in this case. :-)</p>

<p>If you allow yourself a new camera every year or two, why not just get a D3s now, and get the next one whenever it exists. The worst that could happen is if the replacement comes out in a few months, you will not have the latest and greatest for "a year or two", but a crappy outdated D3s instead. </p>

<p>Maybe the reason no one has, or is out of stock of the D 700, is the earthquake that hit Japan.<br>

As Shun has pointed out several times, all of the camera makers suffered damage to their facilities, and may not yet be back to full production yet.<br>

And that may also be why Nikon has not come out with a new D4.</p>

<p>Hmm, Why not a second D700 for the time being, two D700's cannot be a bad situation....</p>

Hello Andrew,

 

I would say buy a camera based on need, and if you feel you need a new body based on the work you're getting then

get the D3s. I sort of went through this last month, albeit with DX equipment. I was starting to get some paid gigs (not

weddings, but photoshoots and sporting events) and needed a camera to have in case my D90 started acting up.

There's "supposedly" a "D400" coming out soon and the D7000 was available, but I opted for the D300s because

based on my needs the D7000 wasn't enough (slower fps for sports). I'm very happy with the D300s and I'm glad I

bought it because I don't know when Nikon will release a follow-on. Whatever Nikon releases, I'm sure the D3s will

serve you very well (if you need it today).

<p>hmm, i have a D3s right now. it's a pretty solid camera. i dont think it will be obsoleted by a D4, but who knows? i think it comes down to technical capacity. how much do you really need? and do you need the D3s' advantages? besides being sexier, i mean.</p>

<p>if we're being practical, getting another d700 is a much more sensible option, since you can share batteries and the grip with your current camera, and save some of your NAS slush fund for the D4 announcement, at which point you have the option of upscaling to either a d4 or a (price-adjusted) D3s.</p>

<p>it's also worth noting that you could get 2xd7k for the price of one d700.</p>

<p>$5k is a lot to spend on a body. my advice, if you're doing this for work, is to get exactly what you need and nothing you dont, while keeping costs down and revenues high.</p>

<p>I think part of the problem is that the constant drumbeat about new cameras from those rumor sites is creating a lot of unrealistic expectations. (I, too, am somewhat guilty about that as I thought Nikon would update the D7000 last year and discussed that a few times.) The fact of the matter is that FX-format DSLR have much longer production cycles. Believe it or not, the most recently introduced FX-format DSLR from any manufacturer is actually the D3S, in October 2009. Sony hasn't introduced anything recently and the latest Canon "full frame" is the 5D Mark II from 2008.</p>

<p>Will this "D4" obsolote the D3S? Since I have no idea how this D4 is like, there is no way to tell. But I think it is quite clear that the D3 serious is getting pretty old. The new Nikon 1 mirrorless cameras give us the hint that AF on DSLRs can be much better in the near future, so I am going to wait. Personally, I have no intend to buy another DSLR with the Multi-CAM 3500 AF system.</p>

<p>In the OP's case, if that D700 has over 170K actuations, I would spend a few hundred dollars to replace the shutter. Even though it may become a backup camera in the near future, you want to be reasonably sure that it is not going to fail in the middle of some wedding.</p>

<p>These cameras make me all my $$. The D700 has been great, I just am thinking that I can get a bit better with the D3s - especially with faster focusing in low light, which I find myself in a lot. Sending off to get the shutter replaced is not a reality right now considering I am just entering my busy season. If the D4 was out, or even announced, this would not be a issue. Sure, 5K is a lot of $$ but one wedding pays for it and equipment problems are much more costly on the day of a wedding....</p>

<p>As the announcement price of the D3 was $6400 and we now have the D3S at approx $5500 I can't see a hyperthetical D4 coming in at less than $6400. Even used D3's are getting $5k+ on the used market. And to me thats just too much. I can afford to pay that but I can't see logic for me. I don't use a lot of actuations as I mainly do portraits and landscapes and the D700 does everything I could ever need.<br>

I picked up a D700 and MBd10 for $2500 earlier this year. Now, the body only price has climbed to $2700. I get the feeling that Nikon is playing with us, trying to match dwindling inventory to markets that will still sustain that higher pricing. And thats just good inventory management.<br>

On longevity, I think the high end market is getting a bit tired of the depreciation factor. Prior to digital and that for me was in 2006, I bought and used only 3 Nikons starting from 1978 and used them all day, every day. The last one I bought was the F4s and I got ten years out of that. I still have them all and still used them. They show no signs of dropping further in value. Now we are led to believe we need to upgrade every 2-3 years with bodies costing more than $5500 at least. It seems that this is foisted on us by Nikon and Canon only. I always said that Sony have the price right with their FX DSLR offering but let down by poor firmware execution. That may change if the NEX 7 is as good as rumoured. If you can put a decent lens in front of the 24mp sensor in a NEX 7, why pay through the nose for a big body unless you do sports etc? For more static photography, the NEX 7 may be quite good enough.<br>

Whatever happens, there will always be unpredictability in the market...its just that with digital, the obsolescence factor makes it even harder.</p>

 

<p>Shun said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Believe it or not, the most recently introduced FX-format DSLR from any manufacturer is actually the D3S, in October 2009. Sony hasn't introduced anything recently and the latest Canon "full frame" is the 5D Mark II from 2008.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well that's a healthy reminder, Shun. Kinda puts things in perspective. Initially, I was very tentative about my D3s purchase last spring. But a month after the earthquake, I found a refurb for $4,250, and jumped on it, thinking that the supply of FX bodies coming out of Japan would be severely depressed for at least six months.</p>

<p>Also, despite the rabid rumors swirling about the internet regarding soon-to-be-announced FX bodies, prior to the quake, I didn't really expect a new FX body until Q1 2012 at the earliest. Meaning, as a non-NPS member, I likely wouldn't have a new 'D4' in my hot little hands until summer, 2012, at the earliest. I wasn't willing to wait, then, possibly a whole year, so I went ahead and bought the refurbed D3s. Certainly glad I did, in retrospect.</p>

<p>Maybe later this year, I'll have enough photo assignments to warrant a second FX body, but in the meantime, I've pressed my D7000 into service as a second body. I just received my new (used) AF-S Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 DX zoom in the mail today, and only just tried it out a few minutes ago outside. Wow! What a performer! Even on DX, I'm able shallow up my depth-of-field. And, with it, the D7000 looks great, and the only "problem" is the less than D3-class/D300-class motordrive speed. At an event last week, I used the D7000 as a second body for closer, flash-fired arrivals. Yes, the slower FPS was a slight handicap. But, other than that, the D7000 performed extremely well as a second body.</p>

<p>But when a new D4 is announced, I expect only a modest increase in pixel-count, while maintaining D3s-class, high-ISO performance (otherwise, PJs worldwide will be on a mad scramble for the remaining D3s').</p>

<p>Stephan said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>As the announcement price of the D3 was $6400 and we now have the D3S at approx $5500 I can't see a hyperthetical D4 coming in at less than $6400. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Another good point. A new D4 could easily be priced much higher than the D3s' previous selling price of $5,200. I'm thinking something like, $5,799 (once the dust settles). Maybe more?</p>

<p>Stephan said:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Now, the [D700] price has climbed to $2700.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>BestBuy was reported to be selling the D700 for just over $2,200 a few weeks ago (now it's back up to $2,699). The Nikon Store has D700s in stock from time to time for only $2,159. When on the hunt for something like that, I just insert the URL as my default site in my browser so I'm sure to check on it every day.</p>

<p>Really, the only logical thing to do at this point is to sell all of your Nikon gear and go with Canon. In a few years (during the next grand oscillation), you can do it all over again and get back to Nikon.</p>

<p>I have been waiting since fall of last year for the next gen FX bodies with the plan of buying two of them, if they were good cameras. Last week I purchased a second D700 after spending about 1500 on renting second bodies. I have finally come to the decision that the next gen FX body announcement plus actual availability time plus lag time for Aperture to be able to handle the RAW files will place next gen FX functionality sometime mid next year. <br>

I had no difficulty getting one through Calumet Photographic (about 2-3 weeks). Between now and time to next gen functionality, I will save about 1500 and I will sell one of the D700 to recover the remaining difference and end up even or a bit ahead. <br>

Only wish I had made this decision last year when I realized I really needed a second D700 body.<br>

Moral: If you really need it, and can afford it, don't play the waiting game for the next gen body. You may win. And you may not win.</p>

<p>I'm actually thinking about selling my nikon gears...What's a super low clicked d700 worth in 10/11?</p>

<i>The D700 seems to have stopped production many months ago</i><p>

 

I doubt this is the case. All the FX cameras can be purchased easily in Finland (just walk downtown to pick one up); if

there is not one in stock you can get one in a week by placing an order at the nearest camera store. The same seems

to be the case in other European countries. The large US stores don't get as many as they'd like but that seems to be

a US-specific problem. If something isn't in stock you can usually still get one by placing an order in a store that

doesn't have a long list and that sells a lot of Nikon gear, and waiting it out.<p>

 

As to the topic of the new upcoming FX cameras, there is no overwhelming competitive pressure for Nikon to make a

move at this point. Nikon's D3s and X are leading performers in their categories. I would expect to see a faster

processor, new, significantly improved autofocus, more pixels, and minor improvements to the user interface in a D4.

However it would not surprise me if the expected fall 2011 release were delayed by 6-12 months due to the situation

in Japan.

<p>I am about to sell my D2X and Canon 1Ds because I have given up on both Nikon and Canon and gone ahead and bought a new Canon 5D II for less than $2000 up here in Canada. When the new Nikon and Canon products finally come out I won't see much depreciation from that price! Heck, most eBay auctions go higher than that for used ones.</p>

<p>Just picked up the 5D II last night and all I really know right now is that my Nikon 8mm f2.8 mounts and shoots with no mirror interference. So my Nikon 400/2.8 AIS won't be a problem either. </p>