Denmark Shops Taking Orders for Nikon D700 - Specs & Price of Nikon D700

Nikon D700 is probably hitting the shops in UK on June 30 2008. Digital Depot, a reputed online camera stores, announced that that last week. And so did Photographica (posted here with the Nikon D700 price listed.)

The rumors about Nikon D700 suddenly picked up a couple of weeks back with pictures & news running all over the internet. The stories mainly came in from Chinese websites. But UK was the first to make a sensible announcement with a date & a specs list. Although the prices have been taken down to avoid confusion, the news of Nikon D700 news is now holding back potential Nikon D300 buyers.

Here is a snapshot of the UK shop announcing the arrival of Nikon D700 for sale.

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New Nikon lenses - PMA 2008

Its been a week since the PMA 2008 and the news of Nikon’s new camera and lenses have already flooded the markets. The new D60, another 10 megapixels digital camera for the amateurs, with in-camera photo editing capabilities and an auto dust cleaner. Priced at about US 700.00 dollars for the camera it is on the higher end for the amateurs.
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Along with that Nikon also rolled out 3 new lenses. Though the new VR tele lenses (500mm et all) are yet to hit the shelves in US, the new ones probably will be retailed sometime in June or July 2008.
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The AF-S DX Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens - this is a G lens, which makes it usable only on the electronic cameras. The focal range is very attractive for street shots and travel photography. And then there is the AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED is more of a close up lens, but the specifications say that the nearest focus point is 0.6 feet - and that isn’t quite attractive. But if you’re using a 1.5x crop camera, you could still get a good magnification for the distance. This is again a G lens, which makes it quite difficult to use on the manual cameras.
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I would be very interested in the PC-E NIKKOR 24mm f/3.5D ED lens. With its tilt shift capability and the wide angle is a good make. Although,if you’re using a low end camera with a 1.5x crop, you will not benefit from the wide angle (effective focal length on a D200 or a D300 is 36mm). But put it on a D2X or a D3 and you have some powerful composition at hand! It is nice though that Nikon has relaunched the Perspective control lens again. The 85 mm PC lens is still available, and this is a welcome addition for the serious photographers.

Nikon Launches D60 - 10 Megapixels advanced digital camera

 

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Nikon announced the launch of Nikon D60, a 10.2 megapixels camera, today with a street price of about USD 700.00. The camera has been launched in Europe today & is supposed to hit the US shelves by March 2008.

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With the D80, D40 & the D40x targeted at the same market segment of amateurs & advanced amateurs, the camera bears a significant trend of the market - help more in-camera processing & reduce the dependency on a computer. In terms of technology though, it bears the same high level of Nikon techniques as in any other along with an advanced dust cleaning mechanism. People have been known to depend on their computer mostly for (a) cleaning up images (b) changing saturation levels & (c) cropping. Having an advanced dusting mechanism would certainly help those who would prefer to spend more time with the camera than with the software!

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Here is a detailed report from DP Review on the camera along with it’s specifications.

New Nikon Tele VR Lenses - affordability vs quality vs weight

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Nikon had announced the launch of the Telephoto VR lenses late last year. The Nikon 600 mm f/4 AF-VR (estimated street price USD 9,500) and the Nikon 500 mm f/4 AF-VR (estimated street price USD 7,900) were announced late last year by Nikon and are yet to hit the market. It had always been a question as to whether one needs a VR with these long lenses for an additional price of between USD 500 to USD 700 and an increased weight of the lens. But looking into the way Nikon is trying to get into the Canon sports market, probably the thought is that many of these “nature” & “field” lenses would now be used in the sports arena easily.

 

Having said that, the 2 other lenses that automatically come into the discussion are the Nikon 400 mm f/2.8 AF (street price of USD 7,000) and the Sigma 500 mm f/4.5 AF (street price of USD 4,200). Nikon would definitely discontinue the non-VR versions of all the lenses that are already made with VR. The Nikon 500 mm f/4 (non-VR) had been a favorite of most of the nature photographers and had performed superbly for ages would be gone in a few months of time.

 

Personally, since I do not do sports, I have not much use of the VR in these tele lenses. That leaves the proposition for the Sigma 500 mm f/4.5 AF extremely enticing, especially if I weigh the positive price and the weight factors to the only negative brand factor. But a difference of USD 4,000 does a lot of justification for a small time photographer like me! The reviews had been excellent over years together. And apart from the Service related cribbing that many people reported as a pain point with Sigma, there have been no complaints on the quality or the operations of this lens.

 

The other brand lens that appears very enticing at least from the price point of view now is the Nikon 200 - 400 mm f/4 G-AFS which comes with a VR for a price of USD 5,100. I have recently sold my very favorite Nikon FM 3A and probably would not have much need of the “D” versions anyway. The Nikon F5 and the Nikon D200 works superbly with the Nikon 200 - 400 mm f/4 G-AFS VR. The zooming ability of this lens, for my needs, out-weighs the benefits of the 500 mm prime.

 

I have thought of the Sigmonster (Sigma 300 - 800 mm f/5.6) for over a year now. It is probably an excellent value for the money (for a price of USD 7,000) but since I have started doing a lot of streets now, I have to finally get this lens off my mind for good!



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