Quick
Links & Comments
News and commentary of interest to Nikon and Nikon F-mount users
Gone Hunting
Sept 1 (news)--byThom is now officially closed until October 1st. Book orders made in September will ship at the beginning of October. Emails will (probably) not be answered.
I do expect to post once or twice during the month, as Nikon has at least four more product announcements that I'm pretty sure will be announced during my off month, and I know all of you will want some commentary from me about the announcements. But due to the fact that I'm in tents most of the month, any post about new Nikon equipment may be a few days later than the actual announcement. There are plenty of places you can get the announcement information, anyway.
Quick Hits
September 1 (news)--Nik announced their HDR Efex Pro plug-in. Capture NX2 was updated to version 2.2.5 to support the D3100 and fixes a few items. Adobe updated Lightroom to version 3.2 and Camera Raw to version 6.2, plus Photoshop had a minor bug fix update. Tamron has announced that it will create and support lens correction profiles for the Di and Di II series lenses in Photoshop and Lightroom. Zeiss has announced that the new 35mm f/1.4 Distagon will be chipped and available in 2011.
New Lenses Shipping
September 1 (news)--All of the new Nikkor lenses except the 24-120mm are shipping from the NikonUSA warehouse now. They should show up in stores shortly.
The Puzzle
August 21 (commentary)--The puzzle with Nikon recently has been "where is it?" As in "where are the lenses?", where is the inventory?", "where are the new cameras?", "where is the video?".
Some of the pieces are coming into place now, particularly on those last two questions. Some cameras weren't here quite when expected because Nikon has apparently moved to producing their own sensors. The video wasn't quite all there because Nikon hadn't yet moved to producing their own sensors. The year-long gap between the D3000/D300s and D3100 was the longest DX body announcement gap we've had since Nikon started iterating faster with the D70s back in 2005. And I suspect that the gap was as long as it was because of the shift in sensor use.
That the D90 replacement is due next month and now likely to also have a new sensor in it would tend to signal to me that Nikon thinks that they've "made the transition." At this point, Nikon appears to have two sensors in production (D3s and D3100) and possibly a third is now entering production (D90 replacement). In the coming year one would expect a D700 replacement and a D4 sensor to also get added to the mix. If the D5000 and D300s get updated, they're likely to use one of the first two DX sensors that exist at the time (e.g. the D90 replacement sensor). So by the end of 2011 we can imagine all Nikon DSLRs using Nikon sensors, and there being either four or five such sensors in production. If I'm right about this, that represents an aggressive move by Nikon.
Taking this further, an eventual D4x could be somewhere around 38mp using Nikon's smallest sensel design, a figure that starts to exceed what most lenses can resolve.
Still, those of you who have read the full series of articles I've been writing about sensor possibilities in the past months know that there's one really perplexing puzzle piece: the D3s sensor. Nothing Nikon is currently working is likely to achieve the same levels of low-light performance that the D3s does. As I wrote earlier, if Nikon could product such a sensor with more pixels, it would indicate another D3 level breakthrough when none is expected. No photographer I know of wants the D3s sensor to die off. We all want it available in a future body as well as the current one. But that's the puzzle piece I can't figure out. Other than possibly making a D700s, there's no clear scenario I can see that would have the D3s sensor live past the D4 introduction. So our puzzle is not yet solved.
Meanwhile, the D3100 also introduced Expeed 2, and not a lot of people have been asking questions about that. My guess? The 2 in Expeed 2 is mostly centered around H.264 compression and other video needs. The question is how far Nikon took that. The 1080P/24 in the D3100 isn't enough for the pro ranks. Hopefully they've thought this through and are prepared to go at least as far as 1080P/60 plus 4.2.2 color with EXPEED 2. But one would really hope that a D4 would be 2k or 4k video, which would require even more from that EXPEED chip.
The puzzle is still missing pieces, obviously, but it's clear now that Nikon is pushing further into controlling the core of their imaging engine. Good for them. And so far, good for us users, too. Just don't let that great D3s sensor die off, Nikon.
Additional Comments on New Lenses
August 20 updated (commentary)--Much of my mail after this week's Nikon announced was filled with comments about the 85mm f/1.4G AF-S. The common denominator: "seems like film-era design." I would tend to agree. Indeed, all the recent new FX primes (24mm, 50mm, now 85mm) seem to be design dinosaurs. My sense is that Nikon saw all those old primes as superb performers not in need of much change. That's especially true since even the lowest body (D3100) now does chromatic aberration correction. There's definitely a bit of "if it isn't broken don't fix it" going on in these designs.
Still, one can't help but feeling a little underwhelmed that the only key addition in the prime lineup is turning out to be AF-S (and on the 50mm, not particularly fast AF-S).
Much of the discussion on the 85mm appears to be about why there isn't VR in this new lens. I've seen multiple instances of people saying that "you can't do VR for an 85mm," but that is clearly incorrect. What they should be writing (or saying) is that if you pick a particular optical design to use, you may find that you can't stick VR into that design. This appears to be exactly what happened with the 85mm. Yet Nikon themselves have designed and patented alternate designs, one of which does have VR in it. So the more appropriate question is why did Nikon choose to do a more modest update than an aggressive one?
Hints are in the Nikon marketing materials. If I read the words "portrait" and "bokeh" one more time today, I'm going to need to go out and use a wide angle lens on a scenic to get perspective back ;~). It simply appears that Nikon thinks the 85mm is mostly a studio lens, and a narrow-use one at that.
One thing that's becoming clear is that the way Nikon is updating primes, all those old manual focus AIS primes are getting more valuable ;~). Optically, the new versions really don't push the boundary very far, if at all. Having a true infinity and well defined DOF markings starts to look better and better every day.
Other quick hits:
- I don't know for sure, but I'm thinking that the AF-S on the new 55-300mm is more like that of the 55-200mm and not the 70-300mm. Slower focus motor, no manual override without using the A/M switch.
- My dealer reports that all the new lenses will be on some form of allocation to dealers initially. So much for my optimism that Nikon might have actually gotten a handle on supply versus demand. All but the 85mm should be available in September.
- Nikon learned from the 18-200mm: the initial 28-300mm has a zoom lock switch on the barrel.
- US prices: 28-300mm is US$1049, the 24-120mm is US$1299, the 85mm is US$1699, the 55-300mm is US$399. (Originally, NikonUSA had the prices for two of the lenses inverted, and thus so did I.)
Further Comments on the D3100
August 20 updated (commentary)--People need to learn the difference between meaningful data and noise. Not in the image quality of a sensor, but in things like product release announcements. Everyone is rushing to make statements about "what is Nikon doing" and "where is Nikon going" and "Nikon has given up on high end DX" and all other sorts of insane speculation based upon one random data point, the D3100 specs. This is akin to betting on the long-term value of the Dow or S&P 500 based upon the daily fluctuation of a single stock. (If you want an in-depth analysis of why that is, read Taleb's book "Fooled by Randomness").
The broad trend in digital is that Nikon has done well in pushing the envelope, especially at the pro end. That started with the D1 and continues through the D3s/D3x today, with the main hiccup being the D2h (which was still better than most people gave it credit for).
When the D2h came out we heard the "I'm switching to Canon" chorus at full volume. On one short-term data point, people made large-scale economic decisions for the long term (selling off their Nikon gear to buy Canon gear). Then the D3 came out, followed by the D3s. What do those new data points say? Why, sell Canon and buy Nikon. This is classic sell low, buy high foolishness.
Single product introductions, even multiple ones, can be meaningless noise in evaluating future prospects. I love how Taleb puts it in his book (again "Fooled by Randomness"): run a Monte Carlo simulation on the same investment strategy and look at the probability of being successful on different time scales: 1 year, 97%, 1 day 54%. In other words, by getting too caught up in the day-to-day noise of individual events, you'll be less satisfied with the same portfolio the more you try to analyze it on short-term events (the day's stock prices, or in the case of Nikon, today's product announcements).
There are trends in Nikon's D3100 announcement that are observable: the D40x->D3000 line continues to evolve, video is becoming more important and getting more features with each new release, neither the basic Nikon button-and-dial user interface nor the menu structures are changing. But to start discussions or send me emails with "the D3100 is now the highest pixel count DX camera Nikon makes" is nearly absurd in terms of using it to predict the future. More likely is this: if Nikon's lowest end camera has 14mp, the future higher end cameras are likely to have more. And the pro cameras will continue to have better pixel data (less noise, more dynamic range, etc.). But if you try to predict the future from a single data point, don't expect to beat the market ;~).
Put another way, the D3100 announcement is only meaningful in terms of where it sits in the low-end DSLR market historically. First, there's a progression (D40x -> D60 -> D3000 -> D3100). Second, how it stacks up against similar competition (low end Sony, Canon, and Pentax cameras, for instance), for which we'll need to see some real performance data, not just a feature set. Third, that Nikon continues to spend a lot of time integrated video at the expense of not doing anything much on the still side that's innovative. In other words, not a lot of "news" in the announcement. Everything may still pretty much be the same as it ever was in low-end Nikon DSLR land: slightly laggard feature set, slightly better performance, (eventual) aggressive price. Thus, I see nothing that indicates Nikon will suffer much with this new camera. Just the opposite: the sane conclusion is that the D3100 will simply take over from the D3000 the role of being one of the most popular DSLRs in terms of unit volume.
What's really happening with all the angst over the D3100 (and probably over the upcoming D90 replacement) announcement is that people are displacing their frustration that they still can't buy a 24mp FX body at a reasonable price with the Nikon name on it. If you can't get what you want, then bitch about something else. Wow, that's a mature approach to life.
One curious aspect of the D3100 is the sensor. "Nikon developed" appears in the marketing materials, and the sensor is indeed not the same one as in the Sony NEX5 (as originally speculated) in several key ways, one of which is physical size, the other pixel count. The Nikon 14mp sensor has slightly more pixel count in a slightly smaller area than the Sony. Indeed, the area is no longer what I'd call DX. The D5000, D90, and D300 have a sensor area of 23.6 x 15.8 (28.4 diagonal), while the D3100 has a sensor area of 23.1 x 15.4 (27.8 diagonal). This represents a loss of about 2% in image circle coverage needed. We're now at 1.55x crop as opposed to the old 1.52x. It's an unusual change, but the bottom line is that the Nikon and Sony 14mp sensors are indeed different in important ways. But I'll repeat: the proof is in the pudding. We need to test the new sensor on live subjects before making any useful pronouncements about it.
Update: I've now heard even more details about the D3100 sensor and from a few sources closer to Nikon Japan. It does indeed appear that Nikon has moved to producing their own sensors. They may be licensing or cooperating on some of the underlying technologies, but it appears that Nikon has decided that Nikon DSLRs will in the future have Nikon-controlled and Nikon-exclusive sensors. That they haven't chosen to make a bigger deal of this is strange. And some parts of Nikon appear not to have gotten the memo on this, as I've seen quotes from Nikon personnel in some subsidiaries that say "Sony sensor."
Nikon D3100 and Four Lenses Announced
August 19 updated (news and commentary)--The second round of Nikon's three fall announcements produced the expected D3100 (US$699), 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR DX lens, 24-120mm f/4 VR FX lens, 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 VR FX lens, and 85mm f/1.4 lens. All the lenses are G and AF-S, with the 24-120mm and 85mm also having Nano coating. I've updated my Nikon lens database with the details on the new lenses, and I'll have a bit more to say about them at the end of this article.
The camera Nikon announced, the D3100 follow-up to the D3000, is sure to raise a few eyebrows. At 14mp and DX, the D3100 now (temporarily) takes the top of the line in terms of pixel density for Nikon bodies. Put another way, for a short time the D3100 will have the most pixels of any Nikon DX DSLR.
The D3100 is a direct replacement for the D3000, though I understand that D3000's will remain in the line up as the entry body until they sell out. In most respects, the D3100 is simply a continuation of the D40x, D60, D3000 lineage. No screw drive for older AF lenses, a small, light body with a clear subset of Nikon DSLR features, and so on. The 3" display of the D3000 remains, as does the CAM1000 AF module (11 points).
What's new really centers around the sensor. The 14mp CMOS sensor is "Nikon designed," though no details about what that really means have been given. The D3100 gains Live View and video capabilities with the new sensor, and the autofocus system has been updated to provide continuous focus for Live View and video. The video capabilities of the D3100 also temporarily top those of other Nikon DSLRs. We now have 1080P/24 and 720P/24/25/30, in H.264 compressions, with a 16-bit mono 24Khz audio file, all saved in a .MOV file container. It's sort of a weird "we'll do it our way" conglomeration of choices, but usable. One real issue is that 1080P/24 isn't really "broadcast quality" here in the US, so the highest resolution provided is most likely going to be used for Web distribution only (720P/30 would be fine for some broadcast purposes).
The menu system I disliked so much in the D3000 has been updated some, though until I have a chance to use it in the field, I'm not sure how much improvement it'll be. On paper, it looks better and more usable, but I thought that of the D3000 until I started using it. The confusing "GUIDE" mode is back, so it'll take some delving into it to figure out if Nikon discovered all their mistakes and odd wordings. At first glance, the GUIDE system has been improved, though.
Overall, the D3100 seems like what the D3000 should have been. Yes, this camera should have surfaced a year ago, with exactly the same specs (and there's really no reason why it couldn't have). How well the camera will sell is going to be mostly down to image quality and autofocus performance, I think. Based upon what I've seen from other cameras using similar sensors, I'm expecting far better image quality than the D3000 produced. I won't be able to guess about the video because we're entering new territory here with Nikon's first true video codec. Video can be quite variable in quality, mostly dependent upon how much bandwidth you provide and preserve in the codec.
The body does get a few much-needed extras: GP1 GPS support, wired remote support (but wireless remote support is removed), and HDMI output. Automatic chromatic aberration correction was also added.
As for the lenses, the only surprise here is the 55-300mm DX. There was a fairly large leap from the 55-200mm to the 70-300mm, so the lens definitely fills a slight gap in the lineup.
Well, okay, I lied. The other surprise was that the 85mm didn't have VR. I really don't get Nikon's decision making on lenses lately. The 16-35mm gets VR, the 85mm doesn't. The quickly retired 28-200mm regenerates a 28-300mm while the 80-400mm remains a sore weak point in the "consumer" FX lineup.
To put it bluntly, the new 85mm f/1.4 has its work cut out for it, because optically there wasn't a lot wrong with the old one. I doubt anyone is going to upgrade just for AF-S or Nano coating (after getting a few emails on this, it appears I might be wrong; some say they need faster AF than the old lens provides; my own take is that the old lens focuses just fine). This feels worse than the 50mm f/1.4 update on the face of it: a lens redesign that doesn't need it.
Meanwhile, the 24-120mm and 28-300mm are lenses that will appeal to consumers and prosumers with FX bodies. That would be the D700 user base. The old 24-120mm showed its weaknesses on the D700, so a new optical design is good, and the constant f/4 aperture gives us all an extra stop at the long end. Nice. The 28-300mm seems to be trying to resurrect the 18-200mm DX experience for FX users. Let me remind everyone what that experience was: we were all at first impressed with the fact that the elephant could tap dance, but after attended a lot of performances, we decided that the elephant wasn't that great at dancing. As I wrote some time ago, the 18-55mm and 55-200mm DX combo could equal or outperform the 18-200mm DX in all respects but one: avoidance of lens changing.
I suspect we're going to find the same thing happens with the 28-300mm. Initially, there will be those that laud it because it "does everything," but they'll eventually get around to comparing pixels and find that the 24-120mm and 70-300mm combo do a better dance. And actually "go to 300mm." ;~)
That said, Nikon will sell a lot of 28-300mm lenses to the masses and we'll see them hanging off D700's at vacation spots for years to come.
Just a Reminder
The short articles on the front page of this site change quite often, sometimes multiple times a day. So if you're not checking the site often, be sure to check out the Archived 2010 link, below, as there may be a handful of items you missed.
Archived Front Page News and Articles
Archived 2010 byThom comments and news
Archived 2009 byThom comments and news
Archived 2008 byThom comments and news
Archived
2007 byThom comments and news
Archived pre-2007 byThom comments and news
Nikon announcements summary 2001-2010
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