Anticipating new DSLR

[orcama60]

<p>I do agree with Shun. 16 mp is more than enough to me too. More than that, is not necessary at all. I guess if Nikon comes up with a camera with 50 mp, a bunch of people ( not photographers ) will buy it, believing they will get better pics. As we all know, it is not the camera but the one behind it. Regarding the D7000, the only thing I don't like is the RAW buffer issue. Other than that, it is a great camera and much better than the D300 ( s ). About the new upcoming DSLR, I hope it is not more than 16 mp but more fps than the D7000, DX and buffer issue problem-free. Don't care at all about video. Give me a D7000x or s and I'll be happy !!</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Canon allegedly had an APS-C prototype in the 50MP range. They obviously exist as medium format cameras - fortunately most are currently too expensive and awkward to use to get bought by people who don't put in the time to work out how to use them. Maybe we can just hope that the pixel count of the D3200 means that people give up on pixel peeping - Photoshop has always, to my confusion, somewhat hidden the concept of a pixel, and maybe if the D3200 in untrained hands gives people lots of pixels but not much detail, its approach might be justifiable. Or maybe that's very patronising of me.<br />

<br />

To clarify, even if I had a horse in this race, I wouldn't be against the idea of a D7000-resolution D400 - but I do think there's also a market for a 24MP body with high-end autofocus. Call it a D400x if you will. There may or may not be enough room in the market for both. And what's the betting that Nikon go with D350, just to spite everyone?<br />

<br />

Also, I write too much and edit too little. Sorry for spamming the thread with an essay.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p>And yet the NEX-7 can do 24MP at 10fps.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Andrew, could you check the specs for the NEX 7 again? It can only shoot 3 frames/sec in the continuous mode. You could be referring to its speed priority mode, which is JPEG only as far as I understand.</p>

<p>The D7000 has the advantage of being quite affording, $1200 initially and down to $1000 now, but its memory buffer is shallow. If you need to move a lot of frames at 16, 18MP, it is costly as partly reflected by the D4 and 1DX's prices.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<blockquote>Andrew, could you check the specs for the NEX 7 again? It can only shoot 3 frames/sec in the continuous mode. You could be referring to its speed priority mode, which is JPEG only as far as I understand.</blockquote>

 

<p>I just had a look at the NEX-7 manual, to cross-reference what DPReview had to say. I can't see a restriction on shooting raw in continuous speed priority. As I mentioned before, it doesn't adjust the focus or metering (you only get 3.7fps if you want those), but DSLRs have done that trick too, and it doesn't depend on the sensor resolution. Even if the NEX 7 could only output JPEGs, it would still need to stream the data off the sensor - everything else is a small matter of how big the buffer is and how fast you can dump it to a card. (We <i>are</i> all happy with a D400 using an XQD, aren't we?) The size of its buffer is another matter. To save me downloading a manual, anyone know whether the CX cameras (can we still call them the 1-series now that one of them's a 2?) are restricted in output format when running fast?<br />

<br />

I've always been interested as to how much memory camera manufacturers manage to wedge into their devices. At least the prices on memory seem to have fallen since the last time I looked - it wasn't that long ago that I wondered if it made a significant dent in the camera's price. I'll happily accept that the D7000's quota would be in need of an upgrade for a D400-class device.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p><em>That seems extraordinarily unlikely to me, </em></p>

<p>Ok, you're right. I did some more searching and found Doug Kerr's PDF which describes it as follows. Each pixel in the sRAW file corresponds each set of 2x2 original pixels on the sensor. It's represented in Ycc format and then transformed using a lossless version of jpg compression (i.e. cosine transform). I guess that document is reasonably credible. Anyway, if they use enough bits to represent the colors then I suppose it allows more flexibility in tone adjustment in post-processing than the jpgs (but apparently still not all the color information of the raw). Still I can't imagine a situation where I would not want the actual raw data stored on the card. You can never know what you want to do with the image.</p>

<p><em>People compare cameras based on megapixel counts</em></p>

<p>I know quite a lot of people personally who buy camera equipment for e.g. travel photography, photographing their families, for amateur photography (more or less serious), and some professionals. Only a very small fraction of these people consider pixel count as a primary descriptor of the quality of a camera's output. Those few are usually the people who have to own and talk about the latest gadgets. Most think the pixel count has very little to do with the quality of their photography. The usually look at handling, size, cost, low light performance, speed, lens and accessory availability, and also sharpness, but again sharpness and pixel count are not the same thing; it's not a big secret. They understand that image quality is not determined by the manufacturer's specifications; in fact many of them are very mistrustful of the the manufacturers' claims. But that's just among the people I know personally in real life - may not represent the world's population very well at all.</p>

<p><em>currently the low-end Nikon has a specification advantage over everything but the D3x and D800</em></p>

<p>In the current lineup the pixel count declines steadily as you go up towards higher end equipment in DX from D3200 > D5100/D7000 > D300s (ok, D90 is an exception here); same thing for FX: D800 > D4. This is no accident and probably will be with us for a while. If Nikon replaces the D300s with a DX camera, I would expect it to be 16MP before going 24MP, simply because of the following:</p>

<p><em>shuffling the data from sensor to flash card seems to be possible.</em></p>

<p>Writing to cards is quite slow compared to the other parts of the system. It's something like 140MB/s with a very fast card (typically people buy 30-95MB/s cards). 24MP at 8fps is 336MB/s (14-bit NEF). </p>

 

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Oh dear, another essay. I promise it looks shorter when I'm typing it.</p>

 

<blockquote>Ok, you're right. I did some more searching and found Doug Kerr's PDF which describes it as follows.</blockquote>

 

<p>Ah, thanks, Ilkka! That's an interesting PDF - and saves me trying to read the dcraw source code to see whether it has anything to say on the subject. :-)<br />

<br />

I'm curious that he claims the red and blue samples are taken from opposite corners rather than averaged - I would have expected this to introduce unnecessary colour aliasing, if the luma data is being preserved (it may be unavoidable if the luma is being inferred from the source samples as in a conventional raw file).</p>

 

<blockquote>It's represented in Ycc format and then transformed using a lossless version of jpg compression (i.e. cosine transform).</blockquote>

 

<p>I'm actually curious what is meant by that - "lossless JPEG" actually uses a completely different algorithm that doesn't go near the DCT blocks used in standard lossy JPEG encoding. Maybe I'll have to read the dcraw source after all...</p>

 

<blockquote>Anyway, if they use enough bits to represent the colors then I suppose it allows more flexibility in tone adjustment in post-processing than the jpgs (but apparently still not all the color information of the raw).</blockquote>

 

<p>I'm putting some of that down to a possible lack of forward planning by whoever in Canon came up with the format. I'd like to think that Nikon could learn and improve (or embrace and innovate, as Microsoft would call it). Assuming, of course, there isn't a patent blocking the concept, which is something that wouldn't surprise me.</p>

 

<blockquote>Still I can't imagine a situation where I would not want the actual raw data stored on the card. You can never know what you want to do with the image.</blockquote>

 

<p>Example: I've shot people dancing at friends' weddings. I've resorted to JPEG because I wanted the buffer not to fill and to minimize the space on the card. I knew that for a moving subject I was unlikely to hit focus reliably or remove all the motion blur, and lighting conditions meant that I was at high ISOs. I would have lost very little by downsampling the resolution (to 9MP for a D800 or 6MP for a D3200 or other putative 24MP camera), but having the full dynamic range of the sensor would let me deal with the uneven and variable lighting better than I could with a JPEG.<br />

<br />

Example: I'm busy at an event and am shooting so much that I'm in danger of running out of memory cards (I usually carry about 80GB around, having picked up a new 16GB for the D800; I've got through 64GB quite regularly even with just the D700). If I run out of cards, or go through deleting images, I'll miss the moment. Maybe the results are going on the web, maybe they're going in a small (A5 or less) print publication. While there are occasions that I do need resolution, this isn't one of them - and I'm more interested in my D800's dynamic range abilities. A smaller pseudo-RAW format would let me mess up the exposure and white balance, as I'm prone to do, and still get what I need.<br />

<br />

I agree that I may miss having the full sensor resolution available for a few of those images. I'm choosing to believe that I'll trade the lack off against the ability to take more shots in a shorter time, or store the results for longer. I'd like to think that we'd expect a bit more of a size reduction than Doug's description suggests, though, especially since we'd expect less noise in the result after downsampling.<br />

<br />

Those are also reasons to decide a 16MP D400 might be more appealing than a 24MP one - but, with my D800, I can press some buttons and get back to the full 36MP glory. Switching bodies according to that result I want isn't such a convenient option. Yes, I can still drag out my D700, but unless there really is a D400s (or H?) and a D400x, I don't think that's the obvious solution.</p>

 

<blockquote>Only a very small fraction of these people consider pixel count as a primary descriptor of the quality of a camera's output.</blockquote>

 

<p>To be fair, you may well be right. Most of the people I know either know about cameras, or would ask me rather than buying on the basis of promotional material. I may also be biased because I'm a resolution junkie (although more in displays than in cameras).<br />

<br />

I was going off the way I see cameras marketed. Nikon's web site (well, I'm checking the product section of the UK one) lists the consumer DSLRs with sensor pixel count as the first item of specification used to compare the models (I don't count "powerful" being part of the specification of the D90, D5000 or D3200, although I'm amused that the D5100 is "superb" and the D7000 is "inspiring" instead). The first thing written on the shelf under the compact cameras in my supermarket is their megapixel count, usually followed by zoom. It's even the first spec that DPReview lists on their cameras pages. Maybe everyone ignores this, but if I were a novice camera consumer and the concept of a megapixel had been explained to me, I'd be asking why the D3200 has more of them than the others. I can't think the D800 is so popular because everyone knows about the dynamic range - the 5D3 is, in most other ways, the (slightly) better camera, yet I get the impression that the D800 got a lot more interest, and it's the resolution figure that did it. I really wondered (once) whether I did the right thing in getting a D700 when the 5D2 was launched at 22MP rather than the 16-or-so I expected. Pixels do, to a certain extent, matter.<br />

<br />

But it may be that the sales people are actually telling the public the whole story, even if the labels on the cameras don't.</p>

 

<blockquote>In the current lineup the pixel count declines steadily as you go up towards higher end equipment in DX</blockquote>

 

<p>I think that's an accident of the times - it happens that the D300s is very old and the D3200 is very new. Historically, we've had, for example, D3000 (10MP), D5000/D90/D300 (12MP DX), D700/D3 (12MP FX), D3x (24MP). We then went D3100 (14MP), D5100/D7000 (16MP) and everyone wondered why the D90 was still there and when the D300(s) was getting replaced. The 12MP in the D300 and D90 isn't there because it's better, it's there because it's not been updated (yet). I'll believe you if you tell me that the 16MP sensor in the D5100 and D7000 is "better" than the 24MP one in the D3200 (which hasn't stopped Sony from tweaking it in the latest NEX-5 variant to add phase detection - I wonder whether Nikon will try to take on the 650D?), but a case could at best be made either way, depending on the use. I'm ignoring the D800 and D4, because even I'm not going to argue that the D4 should have had the D800's sensor.</p>

 

<blockquote>Writing to cards is quite slow compared to the other parts of the system.</blockquote>

 

<p>I mis-typed. I meant shuffling the data off the sensor seems to be possible. It's true that the more pixels you write the more card bandwidth you need, and I concede that cards will have more trouble keeping up with the higher pixel count. It's one reason I keep banging on about an S-RAW variation, but I'll also point out that most cards can't keep a camera at its maximum frame rate continuously anyway - at some point, you run out of buffer. Cards are getting faster, and buffers will clear more quickly, but - as with my D700 - if I want to keep my finger on the shutter release, at some point you need to resort to JPEG and throwing some data away.<br />

<br />

You could certainly argue that holding the same frame count from a 24MP sensor takes half as much buffer memory again as a 16MP sensor, and that for some people that's going to be a problem. Or Nikon could decide that RAM is cheap enough that they can take the hit on that in a high-end body.<br />

<br />

Honestly, I'll be interested to see what kind of D400 turns up (whenever it does); I doubt, at this stage, any variation would surprise me much, unless they simply added 1080p support to the D300s and decided that was enough. But famous last words, obviously...</p>

[jenkins]

<p>Wow!</p>

[RaymondC]

<p>I used to download and print off brochures since getting my own new D70, ie., those brochures of D80/90/200 and of course at the time the professional speedy D2h for that aww factor. I haven't done any after that. And to date, I bought a 6yr old D2h for like 10% of the original price. </p>

<p>I guess it is good for technological reasons, maybe a more affordable FX body. Doesn't mean that I would get it though. Less stuff not being used collecting dust and more money in my pocket to do other things. B/c for me I just put up with things and workaround them as a tool. As a hobbyist print no larger than 16x12 and I hardly shoot higher than base ISO. Add a mean prime lens which is more affordable than a zoom. If I was doing portraiture and family photographs while on travel and needed to get away from the tripod, I may get something newer though (DX or FX). But as I understand the D7000/5100 gives not bad ISO performance too. </p>

[josh_schneider2]

<p>Im still shooting the D200...<br>

Im still not "as good" as this camera.</p>

[johnw63]

<p>If the D7000 rebates become permanent, and it continues to sell for about $999, that leaves little room for the D90 and more room for a D300 replacement.</p>

[peterd]

<p>@Rene - Everyone knows that megapixels are like performance stickers on japanese cars. C'mon each sticker = 5hp! ;) Been some time. I am glad you are still around. :D</p>

[peter_gaunt]

<p>The megapixel thing is bonkers and that especially applies to compacts. Yesterday I went looking for an inexpensive (read dirt cheap) no frills, point and shoot which I could just stick in my pocket when I go out. Could I find one with under 12 megapixels? Could I heck and I could only find ONE of those. They were all 14 or 16 megapixels which the young woman with the holiday job assured me was 'much better'. I would have been happy with 5 since the pics are only ever going to viewed on screen or possibly small prints since it would have been much better in low light. In the end I bough a cheap 14 megapixel (£50) Fuji largely because I liked the way it handled. Complete madness if you ask me.</p>

[mike_halliwell]

<p>I got a D3200 body-only at a good price, a split kit from a bigger seller. I found that the processing of the RAWs required more thought than that for my D700. Many of the parameters are pixels-number or pixel-radius quantified etc, and the huge resolution means the numbers I used to use have very little effect. I usually use DxO for conversion.</p>

<p>Like many other 'extra' hi-res users have found, it does require more of the photographer's technique and equipment, but when it works, usually MF on a macro rail with Zoomed Live-View, the extra res <em>does</em> count. ..........For a 6" x 4" printed postcard....not so much. :-)</p>

<p>For my sports shooting, a 12fps 16MP DX sensor that will fill a 16GB card without slowing would be good. I'd <em><strong>probably</strong></em> never want to do it in one go though! Probably with a modified/upgraded D4 AF Module. Oh, and I'd like Andrew's 'binned' RAW format too please!</p>

<p>Has anyone thought of VR by Sensor Shift for DX/FX?.. I've often wondered whether a system could encompass Lens AND Sensor based systems???? Complex?, Oh YES!</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>IMO the problem with Nikon including a sensor shift based image stabilizer is that they'd have to pay licensing fees to (presumably) Sony (Minolta invented this technology). I suspect this could make the cameras not competitive pricing-wise. Also, the optical stabilization does have the advantage that it stabilizes the viewfinder also and helps in keeping the AF points on target especially with longer lenses. </p>

[jerry_sousa]

<p>If Nikon did not release a new DSLR at the upcoming Photokina, I would not be unhappy. There are after all 12 models to choose from now, 8 of them being DX format ones. The question, as it has for the past 12 years, remains: where are the DX primes...wide and tele? </p>

[jerry_sousa]

<p>On a related note, both Nikon and Canon were ambushed somewhat by the introduction of the wonderful little Sony NEX cameras. With the appropriate adaptor, these picture taking machines are able to utilise just about any lens in 35mm ever made.</p>

<p>There are many Leica M's and R's, as well as Nikons and Canons gathering dust whilst their owners' are out enjoying their legacy lenses on these little electronic marvels.</p>

<p>This is what Dpreview has to say about the 24MP Sony NEX-7 in particular:</p>

<p>"It's no stretch to say that, at its best, the NEX-7 offers the finest still image quality of any APS-C camera, bar none." </p>

[Sycamoe]

<p>To clarify my original post, I'm shooting with a D200 right now. I love it but I would certainly feel good about an upgrade after 7 years. I'm not addicted to the latest and greatest, I just know that there have been considerable USEFUL improvements since my camera came out. And the next step forward should be more than enough advancement to justify an update. If it's not, I would go all in for the D7000 and I'm sure I'd be happy.</p>

 

[tombest]

<p>Harry, I am a recent convert from a D200 to a D7000. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner. The D200 owes me nothing and was a faithful friend for 3 years but technology marches on. The D7000 is a remarkable camera... but one that has more of everything than the D200 did. More adjustments, more megapixels, more focus options, Active-D lighting. It's a lot to learn but I am able capture shots I wasn't able to do before. The high ISO capability is pretty amazing and it focuses faster and more accurately than my D200 did. Really, the only thing the D200 did better was bracket. You are able to capture up to 9 shots spaced one stop apart with the D200. The D7000 will only do three but at up to 2 stops apart. If you can live with the slightly smaller form factor, the D7000 is a lot of camera for the 'now asking price' of a grand. The price drop would certainly lead one to believe that its replacement is around the corner but the changes would have to be significant to make a lot of us leave our D7000s. The RAW buffer IS small but I honestly haven't challenged it to exhaustion. The high ISO could go higher as could the frame rate but really, do we need it? Most of us, probably not. <br>

One last word... the difference in file sizes from the D200 to the D7000 are significant as are the processing times in the editing program of your choice. I personally would not welcome a 24mp version of the D7000. The 16 in the D7000 already require more of me than the 10 did in my D200. So, in answer to your original question, no, I'm not crazy in anticipation for what comes next. If I still only had my D200 and was in the market for a new camera, I would personally wait to see what Nikon introduces. But as it is, I'm extremely happy with my D7000.</p>

<p>Tom</p>

[Sycamoe]

<p>Tom, thanks for your thoughtful and very helpful response. I'm sorry to hear about the bracketing because I do 5 shots for my HDR but I guess 3 is good enough.</p>

[dan_south]

A friend lent me a NEX-7 for a weekend. It's a very nice camera - beautiful design and fun to use - but it doesn't replace

a DSLR. The AF features are spartan, image stabilization is limited to a few lenses, flash options are extremely limited,

and high ISO performance is not in a league with the better DSLRs.

 

The bottom line is that as much as I enjoyed shooting the NEX-7, I didn't find enough utility to actually want to buy one.

Perhaps when they make a full frame version I'll take the plunge.

[Andrew Garrard]

<blockquote>Has anyone thought of VR by Sensor Shift for DX/FX?..</blockquote>

 

<p>Yes. Pentax.</p>

 

<blockquote>I've often wondered whether a system could encompass Lens AND Sensor based systems???? Complex?, Oh YES!</blockquote>

 

<p>I think it's normal to turn off the sensor shift if the lens can do it. Canon have multi-stage IS in their 100mm macro.<br />

<br />

Re. the NEX-7, lovely looking camera, I'd be very tempted if it were a little smaller and - more importantly - cheaper. The D3200 has a sensor with similar specs, after all. I'm not paying NEX-7 money for what, for me, would always be a second system. I'll be interested to see how the autofocus in the 5R keeps up, though.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Just a follow-up: <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/nex_7_six_month_on.shtml">this review</a> confirms that the NEX-7's sensor (and presumably, therefore, the one in the D3200) can shoot RAW at 10fps, although probably not for very long before its buffer fills up. That information may or may not be relevant to any D400 that may or may not eventually get launched...</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Andrew, according to DPReview: <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonynex7/2">http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonynex7/2</a><br>

The Sony NEX 7 features a 6000x4000 RAW image size while the D3200 is 6016x4000. Therefore, most likely the sensors are not the same, although they are both "24MP."</p>

<p>Additionally, also according to DPReview, the NEX 7 has a RAW buffer of only 13 images. In other words, if you capture at 10 frames/sec, you'll fill up the buffer in just over one second and will then have to wait for the slow memory card write.</p>

<p>On the other hand, the D4 has RAW buffer between 69 and 98 frames depending on you compress your RAW and capture 12 or 14 bits. Even though you factor in the 16MP vs. 24MP between the two cameras, the D4's buffer is still several times as large. Such huge buffer is what is required for those big-time sports cameras and it is costly because such fast memory in minature size that fits inside a camera is very expensive.</p>

<p>If Nikon designs some DX-format sports DSLR, it will also require some expensive buffer far beyond what the Sony NEX 7 offers. Most likely it won't be as deep as the one on the D4 for cost reasons, but when you make that 24MP, it is affecting the design in the wrong direction.</p>

<p>Personally, I would rather not have 24MP on an APS-C camera, be it a Nikon D400, D3200, or Sony NEX 7. 16MP is plenty for me. FX is a different story.</p><div></div>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>My hope is for 24 mp on a full-frame sensor in a camera that is reasonably priced. </p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<blockquote>The Sony NEX 7 features a 6000x4000 RAW image size while the D3200 is 6016x4000. Therefore, most likely the sensors are not the same, although they are both "24MP."</blockquote>

 

<p>I believe you. Although I thought it the case that the D7000/K5 and the NEX-5N shared a sensor, and there's a similar disparity (4928x3264 vs 4912x3264) there. My guess might be that Sony use 16 columns of the sensor for something, if they <i>are</i> the same sensors and I'm not confused. No doubt there'll be a parts list somewhere that'll say for sure - I'm sure the processing is different, in any case.<br />

<br />

Memory's getting cheaper. I wonder whether Nikon might use a 24MP camera to keep the buffer smaller in terms of frames yet the same physical size... it depends how much they'd deliberately cripple a DX sports camera so as not to make the D4 look bad (unless they do a D3 and offer a RAM upgrade). Still, I'm not going to claim that Nikon are going to do it, just that I still think they <i>could</i>, that some people would like it (if I had the money, I'd take it as a lossless teleconverter - a D3200 is already tempting if the price drops a bit), and that it might not be cost-ineffective. The D4's buffer sizes don't seem to be very consistent in that table, but the worst case seems to be a bit over 2GB, and even the RAM in a modern mobile phone ought to be fast enough to do 24MPx10fps with a little headroom without making much of a dent in the price of a prosumer DSLR.<br />

<br />

Lannie: Well, at least <i>that</i> rumour is consistent. :-)</p>