What? No sample photo's?
I'd have figured El Reg would have gotten their hands on one to really take it for a test drive.
The flame because the article was too short and a full review needs to happen. :-(
Nikon hauled in London's camera and tech press corps yesterday to show off its latest DSLR, the Nikon D7000. We shall post a review soon enough, but for now, here's a run down of the spec. Positioned between the Nikon D90 and the D300s, this 16.2mp camera is aimed at enthusiasts who are willing to pay £1100 for a body only or …
I've been waiting for ages for Nikon to come out with an FX format camera that is actually affordable. This is just the right price point, but it is DX. Why put a 16 MP sensor on a DX format camera. I don't understand them at all. Canon have an affordable full frame sensor - why not Nikon.
Because it would cost twice as much. Full frame sensors aren't cheap.
And before someone trots out Moore's Law to "prove" that they will quickly become orders of magnitude cheaper than they are today, no matter what you do to the size of a transistor, a full frame sensor is still 36mm x 24mm.
A top-end DSLR camera with a 5Mp sensor will produce far better pictures than a 10Mp compact almost across the board.
However, whether or not a 16Mp sensor is better quality is just one factor. All other things being equal, including lens quality, noise level and sensor size/quality then the more pixels the sharper the picture.
It's like looking at hi-fi amps. You get a low-end one with lots of knobs and gauges and compare it with a high-end one with just a volume control. The low-end one might look cool and have an impressive spec, the high-end amp will just blow the socks off the competition in terms of sound quality.
I would imagine that all the existing Nikon compatible lenses would fit this digital back.
However: this doesn't really seem to be a camera that targets professional photographers (D3X is more than 6 times the price), so I don't know how many lenses the potential buyers would already have.
Also speaking as a Canon user, this should give them a kick up the arse. This does look likely to occupy a price point above the 60D however. I have a feeling the 60D will in time dispell some of the initial, and I believe irrational, disappointment, but I'd be seriously looking at the D7000 if I weren't wedded to Canon.
Now pardon me while I go out and buy that 7D I've been eyeing off for so long.
Sure it can do 1920x1080 progressive video ... at 24 frames per second only. Great if you're making a movie for projection in cinemas but not so good for display on a TV screen. To get 25fps or 30fps matching TV standards you have to switch down to 1280x720 resolution. Given the tiny difference between 24 and 25 this has to be a limitation driven by marketing and not by technology. In due course Nikon will presumably have something that can to 1080p25 and 1080p30 but at a higher price.
I would have thought that, at 24p, being compatible with the professional film industry that uses this frame rate with higher end equipment can only be a bonus.
This provides enthusiasts and indie-film makers an easier path (not having to convert framerates, with potentially dubious results) to publishing and airing their content. For once this decision appears to be driven by standards rather than technology or marketing.
1080p30 and 1080p25 and higher obviously have benefits with higher frame rates but 24p appears to be the most common standard of Blu-rays and films, even though other rates are defined.
Don't 24p Blu-ray films look good on a TV then?
Of course, I could be completely wrong if distributing films is over the internet - where frame rate support might be more flexible and variations supported. YouTube has a 1080p but also a mode called 4K - for content made by high end Red cameras.
Read a debate about 24p vs other frame rates here:
"HD Camcorders: all not 24p capable for archive direct to Blu-ray: thoughts?"
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic373097.html#2005552
Hopefully they've not capped the duration limit, it just fills up the capacity of the memory card.
Earlier cameras had a deliberate time limit to avoid EU Duty on camcorder classification.
FAT32 card limit, if used, can be overcome by auto-splitting the continous growing recording into separate files with a playlist metafile to link and order them, as PVRs might do.
'Clip' in the official spec seems ominous though :(