Nikon Watch

I’m starting to see D90 rumors flying (thanks to everyone who sent them in). Don’t know if they’re really D900 rumors or if there’ll be a D90 and a D900- but I’m thinking that would just confuse things for now.

In any case, from Thom (if you believe it):

Technically, Nikon has been a bit behind on that. In the consumer market, sensor cleaning and ubiquitous VR (via the sensor) and live view all got established by competitors well before Nikon did it. That’s going to shift a bit with the D90, I think, but the D60 is an example of Nikon NOT doing the above. And in the higher lineup, of course Canon beat Nikon to the punch with FX, affordable FX, pixel counts, and high ISO capabilities. It’s only in this current design cycle that we see Nikon now trying to do what you suggest.

In-body VR would be great– if it worked well. I remember way old Sony digicams that would do VR by cropping your sensor and then as you moved the camera, they’d just use a part of the chip that had been cropped until you had moved it-so basically selectively using part of the chip.

Also- Gizmodo and other sites are reporting a possible Sept 3rd Nikon conference, to maybe announce something new like the D90 or maybe D3x… who knows?

I got a report that Nikon may be BUYING FujiFilm. No I can’t substantiate it, no I can’t find anything but periodic reports of this going back for years. I’m not actually sure what Nikon would get out of it- possibly some sensor patents from Fuji like the one for using different sized pixels in their sensor to get better dynamic range.

Though I think it’d be smarter to simply license any patents Nikon would like, rather than buy Fuji wholesale. Also, Nikon seems to be doing fine in the sensor-design category itself…

From the beginning with the D3, we’ve noticed that 9fps quickly bogged down depending on which settings you had.

Nikon’s noticed and now they’re providing a buffer upgrade service for $500 starting yesterday.

Highlights:

Fee and Return
The cost is $500.00 plus your state tax. Customer is responsible for all shipping costs. Please allow up to two weeks time for the Buffer Memory Expansion service; should more time be required, the user will be informed.

Fill out this form before sending.

Performance: FX raw 14bit standard is 16 shots, upgraded to 36.

$500 is kind of pricey though- thankfully I don’t need high FPS that much.

Thanks to everyone for writing into tell me that it comes with the LCD protector- it appears that the D700’s LCD is based on (or is…) the D300’s LCD.

Remember this story from a while back where Nikon got a patent on a non-Bayer sensor?

Well, a birdie sends a pretty picture of its layout and writes:

- A new type of pixel/micro-lens arrangement allows hexagonal elements (pixels) and a cartesian (x-y) read out.

-Maximizing efficiency (capture area) of every ray of light goes though the micro-lenses.

-There is limit on the smallest size of each micro-lens (due to the mirrors), hence resolution of this type of sensor may limit to the pixel pitch of 10 micro-meters. Still, enough for 135 film formats to deliver nearly 10 million pixels with true R-G-B each.

Of course, this birdie wouldn’t tell me where he gets his info from- so I can’t tell how much credence to give this one…

After chatting with him a little more, this means that the sensor would be roughly 7.2*3=21.6mp equivalent if you try to evaluate it in Bayer-sensor terms:

You can say that. Since the interpretation of pixel counts is quite confusing right now, just say it will provide same if not better detail as the 20mp bayer-sensors, with much more accurate color pattern reproduction.

A personal aside, if you will– I’ll be damned if CaptureNX 1.3 lets you select a printer to print to- it seems to always print to the default printer.

I can only get it to print to a different printer if I set Windows to default to the printer I want to use.

Presuming I’m right-you’re inconvenienced if you have say, a Laserjet for regular documents and a photo printer for pictures.

This is just plain amateur-hour - very lame. Hopefully this is fixed in V2. I also have to give them hell for not using the regular Windows help system- I can’t stand the Mac-type help- it’s just not easy to find anything without doing a search.

If I’m wrong here, please let me know.

What am I missing? Does the D700 come with an LCD protector? The D3 didn’t because they said you didn’t need it- the glass was extra hard– isn’t the D700 using the same LCD as the D3? Or are the Russions getting a protector just because?

Here.

Strange item from a Nikon list:

>[When the D4 comes out]- Will this be when
>a “mirrorless” viewfinder is developed?

When I asked a very senior Nikon person from Japan this same question last year, the answer was that we would be seeing a mirrorless dslr “sooner than you think”.

This is kind of strange, I’m not even sure what “mirrorless dslr” means. I’m really hoping that it doesn’t mean that we get an electronic viewfinder instead- with liveview (finally), I’m not sure what the point would be.

Maybe they’re bringing back the pellicle mirror concept like they had on the F3H- here’s a good shot of the pellicle mirror.

More guessing- if we have great noise-free images at higher ISO like we have on the D3- then the light falloff from the pellicle mirror is no longer an issue- and we have a sensor that can either shut itself off (so we don’t need a moving shutter) or use an LCD or similar to electronically prevent light from hitting the sensor, then we could have a VERY high-speed, camera that is nearly silent!

Engadget points us to this D700 minisite which has a D700 unboxing video- you know, if you’re into that…

The Strobist is nice enough to show us a SB-800 next to an SB-900 and, as I’ve read elsewhere, it’s much bigger!

He also reviews the new flash here:

…

I got a chance to play with a new Nikon SB-900 speedlight over the last few days and I gotta say, it’s a pretty sweet flash. Long story short: Nikon has just extended their lead in the flash department.
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First impression: It is much bigger than the SB-800. Didn’t really seem any heavier, but definitely takes up more space.
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It’s the most sophisticated refractor/reflector system I have ever seen on a flash. They actually modulate the tube with respect to both the front fresnel and the polished, rear reflector. This gives you the ability to shape the internal qualities of the beam, too.
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Big on the advantage list: Recycle time absolutely rocks at 2 seconds with no accessory battery back.
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The bar-coded Nikon gel thing is a little gimmicky — it sets your camera’s WB to the “appropriate” setting. The special Nikon gels could easily be duped with a template and some liquid paper. You will not need to re-up with the official Nikon gels ($$) if you do not want to.
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Goofy, but cool: At full power, the discharge sounds like a blaster from Star Wars (”pew, pew, pew“). Recycling is almost silent. And oh-so-fast.
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A “thermometer” in the rear display shows you if you are starting to red-line it.
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The hot shoe is a new, thicker size that will not fit many current accessory shoes. McNally dropped one out of a Justin Clamp, which is a staple lighting tool.
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The new AS-21 foot must be used because of the new shoe size.
…

[Update: Confirmed per the Strobist. See the next post.]

This thread on flickr is stating that the SB-900 flash has a thicker shoe than the SB-800 and similar flashes and apparently, this is causing trouble for people who try and mount the flash directly to various accessories.

The SB-600 not only drops a pin into a hole like David Hobby mentioned, but also raises two (very) small clamps from the level of the metal base, e.g. to prevent falling out of non-Nikon accessories.

It looks like it’s the same for the SB-900 …

I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else, however, some I’m filing it under Rumors for now.

Wow! Phase1’s head of R&D shows their digital backs working after being frozen in dry-ice for half an hour and also working with 1000lb’s (or so, that’s ~453kg) of an SUV on top of them.

You have to admire their willingness to destroy $30-$50k worth of camera backs. I wish I had one, I wouldn’t treat it half as harshly as that!

You may have noticed that I’m starting to write “Nikon” in front of lots of stuff, eg- “Nikon D700″, “Nikon SB-900″, etc.

This is to try and help this site get a little higher on the list of searches, so do me a favor and go ahead and ignore it.

Sorry to have to be overly verbose, we KNOW a D700 is a Nikon product but most people search for “nikon d700″.

I’m having a hard time believing that it’ll be 24.4mp- I’m think it’ll be a bit larger, but:

Although the rumors were strong for an announcement of the 24MP D3x/4 around end of august early september, it looks like its a no show.

I was contacted by an old friend who works for nikon, and even though the 24.4MP camera is going around and will be at the olympics (from what i understood still only as an early prototype), there is no intention of bringing it into production until after the end of 2008.

When I asked him repeatedly if he was sure, he insisted in a very confident matter, that if nikon was going to announce something that big in the time frame given he would have known. I insisted that there had to be some truth in the august rumor, and this time he said: “if its true, then they will surprise everyone, including official dealers - the only thing to come next is the full range of new coolpix cameras” …

Yeah, I also thought August was super unlikely- just too close to the D3 and D700.

InfoBorder has some close-up shots of the D700 compared to the D300 and a quick write-up here.

…To flatten the ongoing 95% viewfinder discussions: In my opinion the 95% of the FX (D700) looks *much better* than the 100% of the DX (D300) body - and the D300 viewfinder is actually quite good…

I’m seeing reports that the SB-900 flash’s are starting to appear in stock in various places.

Plug: B&H still doesn’t have them yet though- and they’re the only shop I trust to be truthful about whether they actually have them or not. When their system says it’s in stock, it’s in stock.

If you’d like to support Nikon Watch and give me a few pennies, then do me a favor and click a B&H ad (like at the top of the page) then place your order like normal.

[Note: this is not a request for you to click a google ad. Urging you to do that violates their policies and I won’t.]

That is all- carry on.

A little birdie says:

After the D700, the D900 will be on the way with more megapixels.  This is a rumor from a friend who has connections to Nikon office in my country.

So maybe the D900 will end up being the “halfway” megapixel camera with ~18mp- halfway between the D3’s/D700’s light sucking 12mp and the (presumably) 24-28mp D3x’s not-quite light sucking sensor.

But who knows? There’s a lot of wiggle room between 12mp and 24-28 or so.

It’d also be interesting to see two body styles from now on- really fast, huge  pro body- D3 and the half-sized, same sensor, not quite as fast prosumer body like the D700.

A little birdie writes:

Nikon shows us having 2 D700 bodies on pending release. That usually means
they will ship any day so expect them to hit the market in the next few
days.

It’s nice to see that Nikon appears to be good about keeping this retail channel!

Martin saw my attempts at showing you the difference in viewfinder coverage between the Nikon D3 and the D700 and thought that he might be able to better. I’m still partial to my attempt, but admit defeat.

Here he shows you the practical difference in coverage between the D3 and the D700:

He points out that this is larger than life-size and in the actual camera, there’d be an even smaller practical difference. In this case, I agree with others that the difference just won’t be an issue when you’re shooting.