New Nikon Cameras

Yesterday Nikon announced two new cameras. The first is the Nikon D300 to compete with the Canon 40D with a 12.3MP 14 bit sensor, sensor dust cleaning, 3" rear LCD, 6 FPS, ISO 200-6400 and new auto focus system. There is no data on the size of the RAW buffer. www.dpreview.com mentions something about a vertical grip that will increase the frame rate to 8 FPS. The Nikon D300 matches the announced Canon 40D feature for feature and adds a few appealing features in addition.



The second announcement is a new line of Digital SLR, the Nikon D3. This camera sports a full frame sensor 12.1MP 14 bit sensor, 3" LCD, 9 FPS and 11 FPS cropped, and HDMI output. There is no data on the size of the RAW buffer. This is the first full frame sensor by Nikon that they call FX. The Nikon D3 is a competitor to the Canon 1D Mark III announced in February and is better in sensor size and resolution. This is an important release for Nikon. The sensor inside the Nikon D3 is a Sony sensor, so I expect the SLR market to get a whole lot more interesting in the next year. I expect Sony (remember they bought Minolta and produced the Alpha cameras) to come out with a full frame camera.