Pro DX is Dead

Started Nov 7, 2012 | Discussions thread
Theodoros Fotometria
Senior MemberPosts: 2,090
Re: Pro DX is Dead
In reply to jfriend00, Nov 13, 2012

jfriend00 wrote:

seahawk wrote:

Announcement for what exactly? The D300 will be discontinued and that will be it. And the reasoning behind the move is not wrong either. The most important part of a DSLR is the sensor and with FX coming down to 2000$ the DX camera at 1800$ is no longer attractive to most interested customers. And Nikon misses not only a replacement for the D300, they miss one for the D700 as well.

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hobby aviation photographer

That is purely your opinion and is stated with way more authority than it deserves. Perhaps you are not interested in a D400, but the fact is that don't know what Nikon will or won't do.

Because there still is a class of photographer that wants and would buy a D400 (fast fps, large buffer, top of the line AF, large and sturdy build, all pro controls, DX reach, DX lens compatibility, etc...), there are plenty of scenarios where Nikon might still build one. Neither the D600 nor the D7000 does what the D300 does so neither is a replacement for or an upgrade to the D300 or some of the photographers that still shoot with it. I don't personally know whether Nikon will or won't build a D400, but I do know that the answer is not yet known and I do know that some photographers would buy one (or two) so the target audience has not declined to zero.

In fact, I would guess that a $1600 D400 could even outsell the D600 because most photographers don't really need FX and the D400 (at its full resolution) is compatible with all the lenses that the majority of Nikon's installed base (who shoots DX) already owns. And, assuming the D400 follows in the D300's footsteps, if you compared feature-to-feature between the D400 and D600, the D400 would win pretty much every comparison except it isn't FX. And, if you look at system price (body plus lenses one buys), a D400 plus lenses might cost thousands less than a D600 plus lenses. So, one could make an argument that the extra bucks on the D600 sensor is not well spent for most photographers when they could get so many other features/lenses for their dollars in a D400 or even a D7100.

The D600 is a great camera if you really want/need FX. But, if you're looking for top value and don't have to have one additional stop of low light capability or go super wide, then it's not the best value in Nikon's lineup (in fact, it's darn expensive to build an FX system). Because the DX sensor costs so much less than the FX sensor (by some estimates as much as 10x less), you can get a lot of other capabilities for that same amount of money in a DX camera or get the same other capabilities and have a lot more money left over for quality lenses (in which case DX lenses themselves will cost less).

Just because a shift to FX is currently popular (buoyed by Nikon's recently FX product introductions), I don't think we've seen the end game yet. For most photographers, FX isn't the right value choice and won't give them the best IQ for the dollars they have to spend. That should mean there's still lots of interesting life left in the DX line, including room for a fast camera for action sports.

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Yet, seahawk is right... No matter how much one wants a camera, you can't expect a manufacturer to replace a product that doesn't have enough market... D300 sales did drop after D7K arrived, meaning that body quality didn't matter much for many ex-D300 customers and many others would consider FX because it's nearer than ever before to D300 price... Mind you that D600 started its sales at much larger quantities than D300 ever have had.

In fact the first sales drop of D300 was when ...D700 appeared and the second cannibalizing was from ...D90 which had the same IQ. There after D300 was never a competitive camera in the market... This means that asking Nikon to replace the camera with a product baring the same philosophy, is like asking them to commit a marketing suicide at that price point... They will rather go with what secures them high sales and this is providing a better alternative than Canon's 7D... and since D7K already does that in terms of photographic IQ... they will advance video quality (7D's other strong selling point) further....


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