Nikon announces D3/D300

Yummy

D3
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0708/07082312nikond3.asp#specs


D300
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0708/07082313nikond300.asp

 

where do these fall in the d70/d80/d40 line up?

 

go it ...it costs $3000....

 

with an rrp price of over 3k - i'd say they hardly fall...!

I'm after a new camera myself, can't decide with the new panny dmc fz18 or a cheap dslr...sigh...

 

and sells early next year?

 

interesting....

just looked breifly....does the panasonic use image stabelisation?

My Dads got a Canon point and shoot thats got it.....he is very pleased with it.

It gives him very good landscape shots but hes not so pleased with close up detial resololution.

We were talking around this subject an hour ago....he was telling me there is a trade off with noise reduction at high iso (asa) settings. I'd never realised this to be the case ..!

ie the cameas sensor can reduce noise ....but at the expense of tonal quality.....so I wonder if this is part of the issue he has hit with his Canon......or something separate.....

 

BTW a friend of his uses a sony...not sure which....gives hikim excellent macro stuff.....not so good for landscapes!

My old nikon 5700 is ok.....hopeless in low light ....WILL NOT fucus autoamatically and manual is a joke. I belive the 8800 uses a light + sensor......whether or not this improves matters I don't know.

 

..and as ever nowadays, you only get full functionality (eg the 12mp formats) with the very latest lens series - not with DX for example. shame that more and more 'intelligence' seems to be embedded in the lenses as imho coupling body and lens too closely erodes some of the benefit of the slr concept (and certainly Nikon's original compatibility promise) . still, wouldn't say no to one...

 

Would some one be kind enough to explain the terms functionality /intelligence....guess i'm not quite up to speed....

I do wonder if 12mp isn't a bit OTT?

(ie doesn't it just take up loads of space on your HD?)

My 5mp (I thought) was more than I needed (for usual stuff). My mums camera got set by accident to 2mp...they came out fine.

 

yeah, I'm fairly happy with the performance of my fz7 (see pics here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/weardaleone/sets/)

and the oppurtinity to get a better zoom appeals to me... but I can't really afford to get a decent dslr with that kind of zoom...

the panny is expected to cost about 250 (but as much as 300)

 

The sensor processes the output when generating a jpeg file and applies algorithms to reduce noise that the sensor has picked up. These are either better or worse and can be modified/adjusted in some cameras.

The better (bigger) your sensor is the easier it is to process and clear noise - this is why DSLRs have better pics than point and shoots as the sensor is 4-5x the size.

Panny's sensor is noisy in some versions but they are getting better - my LX2 is good with low ISO pics but once you get above 200 its pretty awful.

Looking around I find that fuji have the best non SLR sensor - if you take a look at the review on dpreview for their f31 given the size disparity they have some comparison shots against a D50 canon (an SLR) at 800 ISO and they are pretty impressive for a £130 camera. (The fujis loose out in other areas - functionality etc). On the strength of this I got a S9600 fuji and the sensor/image quality is so much better than my more expensive panny LX2.

ps sensor sizes arent increasing on point and shoot so the pixels are getting smaller so improvements in sensors arent keeping up with the increased noise from the smaller pixels. (as i understand it).

 

thanks....interesting.

 

Ok, I'll bite.

The bigger the pixel count, the bigger the image.

AND

The bigger the pixel, the bigger the noise.

Ideally you get best balance with around 4-5mpix in a DIGICAM and 8-10 in a APS-C DSLR

 

P.S.: Setting the camera to smaller sizes and increasing compression results in consderable loss of quality...

 

thankyou.

 

I have a 12mp Canon SLR the difference I have noticed when changing is from an old 6mp canon is that good quality pictures are possble at ISO 800.This is important if you want to take pictures say at a music concert. Im sure this improvement is down to better noise reduction as well as the increased pixal count. With a 12mp in general camera you have the possiblty to crop your pictures a lot and still get acceptable quality.

I went for my 12mp not for the pixals but because I wanted full frame now my 16mm WA lens takes 16mm WA shots

Andy

 

Do you think that is a general comment about camerasthen, Andy, or specifically DSLRs?

ie makes high ASA (or ISO) settings better?

I'll take your point about croppping......I don't do that much (don't seem to get the chance) but my Dad does it quite alot.



David

 

Thanks MO. As you say, yummy.