Amateur Photographer & What Digital Camera: Nikon

I'm coming to this thread late, and have only skimmed through it, so apologies if I'm repeating stuff or missing significant points.

Tanya, my suspicion is that the 12mp performance of cameras like the D2X and D300 is somewhere up near the practical limit for a DX sensor. Higher resolution with good per-pixel quality is perfectly possible, but the native sensitivity at which that good performance is likely to be delivered will probably just come down and down, and I can't see too many people really needing higher resolutions so much that it's worth sacrificing higher ISO capabilities for. For myself, I already find 12mp quite high enough, given the computing power and storage space already needed to handle the files.

As for future FX cameras, I personally doubt we're going to see new 'full frame' DSLRs at the £1000 level in the near future. End of line stock, perhaps, and as Nick says we're virtually there now. But I don't see cameras being launched at that price point for a long time yet.

More generally it seems clear that the low end is where all the profit is, and that is where Nikon's resurgence against previously all-conquering Canon has been forged. So really I can't see them abandoning the DX format in the long term, or at least until there is some radical development that alters the economics of the technology enough to effectively revolutionize digital camera technology yet again. And we clearly can't accurately predict such things. They might happen, or they might not.

OTOH I suspect Nikon won't produce any more fully pro-level DX cameras. I think the D2X will prove to be the last of that line.

As for lenses, well, I'm not altogether clear what Nikon have done with regard to corner performance in the FX sensor, so it might be that many older lenses won't appear to be adequate on cameras like the D3 or the impending D700 - I really don't know. I find them perfectly acceptable on the DX format, but that obviously doesn't use the full image circle. So really I'm unsure what to expect there. Longer lenses should have no problems either way, so very possibly the market for used long-toms will firm up. But OTOH those who really want longer lenses (for stuff like wildlife and/or sports, maybe) might feel they have more interest in sticking with DX anyway.

On balance, the newer Nikon glass that has evidently been designed precisely for the D3 and other future FX Nikons seems to be so good that people are falling over themselves to get hold of it. That being the case I suspect there will continue to be a lot of bargains around for those willing to put up with 'yesterday's technology' for some time to come.

Finally - and this is a purely personal point - every new stage in the ramping up of the technology in photography makes me more and more wistful for the elegant simplicity of film and the cameras and lenses that went with it. If I were a photojournalist, or if as an amateur I expected to get much more of the sort of photographic opportunities I had in Japan last year, then I'd sell my own mother to buy a couple of D3 bodies. But as it is, the DX format Nikon D2X is about as far and as high as I expect to go in terms of digital photography.

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Huw Evans.

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