The D40, D80, D300, and D3 launches were quite good. They showed that Nikon had gotten firm control over their advertising and marketing initiatives, and could actually do high key launches successfully and with a high degree of coordination. But we seem to be back to the old Nikon. First the Coolpix P6000 fiasco, now the D3x fumble.
The D3x has been percolating for some time, and Nikon hasn't exactly been able to keep that secret. First, there was the D3 firmware release that gave us the pixel specs (24.5mp). Then there was the constantly changing release dates (three that I know of). Next we had a cryptic ad in Rangefinder magazine. Then NikonUSA briefly posted small photos of the camera on their Web site. And today the Nikon Pro magazine hit some user's hands with an article about the yet-unannounced camera.
First, the news: take a D3, swap out the sensor and digital board, and you have a D3x (there may be some small menu changes, too, but nothing that rises to headline level). Instead of a 12mp FX sensor, we now have a 24.5mp FX sensor. The D3x frame rate is 5 fps for FX, 7 fps for DX (10mp). The ISO range drops to 50-6400 (100 base). Other than those changes, it's a D3. Full details should be available in the announcement on December 1st, so I'll simply wait until then to talk further about the camera.
But I will talk about the timing and the way the launch was handled: terrible. We're back to the old fumbling, disorganized Nikon. It appears that Nikon couldn't resist announcing into the Canon 5DII launch window (which also moved). Fine. I'm all for competitive positioning. But the problem is that the D3x launch appears to be completely out of control. Nikon's left plenty of rope to hang themselves, as there's now rampant speculation on price, what the real bitwidth is, and a host of other important things. As one forum post title put it "Let the D3x bashing begin."
I suppose the old "any PR is still PR" notion is still believed by some, but Nikon simply needs to aspire higher. Especially for their high-end, flagship model. If it really is a flagship, treat it like one and do the launch tight and right. This release doesn't seem well coordinated, well-planned, or well-executed. And it comes at exactly the time when most people are distracted by other things. I'll call it what it is: Nikon produced a Thanksgiving Turkey.