The big news in the photo equipment world this week is the announcement of the new Nikon D700 camera. This is a 12 MP full frame body that in many ways approaches the performance of Nikon’s more expensive full frame D3 – and in a few ways may even surpass it. And this at a list price of $2900. This really sounds like a very fine camera in every possible way, and Nikon shooters should be very happy to see “their brand” introducing such fine stuff.
I’m a Canon shooter who uses the 12 MP 5D, a camera that the designers of the Nikon D700 must have had in their sights. On a purely feature for feature basis, the Nikon surpasses the excellent but older 5D. It isn’t that the 5D is a poor camera by any means, and I’m not going to sell my 5D to get a D700. However, the Nikon clearly takes advantages of improvements in DSLR technology that have occurred in the three years since the 5D was introduced and Nikon seems to have done less to cripple their $3000 FF 12 MP body relative to their more expensive bodies in comparison to Canon.
So, why am I glad?
Canon now appears to have (or will soon have) very serious competition in the full frame DSLR market at essentially every model level. The Nikon D3 competes strongly against the (1.3x cropped sensor) Canon 1DMKIII; the Nikon D700 competes very strongly against the Canon 5D and its probable successor; and the word on the street is that Nikon will soon introduce a direct competitor to Canon’s flagship 1DsMKIII.
For many years, Canon was essentially the only game in town when it came to full frame DSLR bodies. While the Canon bodies are great tools that can produce excellent photographs, competition is likely to spur all manufacturers (likely including Sony and perhaps others before long) to renew their focus on optimizing camera design and functionality and will likely even create some pricing competition.
To put it simply, the introduction of excellent Nikon full frame cameras will likely lead to even better Canon full frame offerings – and I’m all for that.
Hi Cynthia:
I think that in the long term, for most photographers it really won’t make a huge difference which brand they shoot – both Nikon and Canon make fine equipment and they are going to play cat and mouse with one another of features. At some point one may seem to be ahead, later the other may seem to pull ahead, and then the other will again be in the lead.
Fortunately, one can make fine photographs with either. :-)
Dan
I shoot Canon too. I locked myself into Canon several years ago when I bought an film camera, the Elan 7ne. I still like that camera. It was cheap, $340 at B&H, and does a lot. And at the time I figured any lens I bought for it would work with a future DSLR. Last October I save up enough to buy the 40D and not having the experience of another camera to compare use against, I find it an excellent camera and i like how it works. Sometimes I do wish I could afford to get a Nikon too. For the people who like to do creative things with a camera, Nikon has models that let you do multiple exposures in camera and the results in the hands of a good photographer are gorgeous. A photographer friend of mine has been shooting Canon and has a Mark II. He contacted Canon about building the multiple exposure feature into a future Canon body and they told him it couldn’t be done. What?!!! Nikon is already doing it! Another friend of mine,
Dan Sniffin shoots Nikon and some of his in camera multiples are here: http://www.dansniffinphoto.com/-/dansniffinphoto/gallery.asp?cat=51573&pID=1&row=15&photoID=6024738&searchTerm=
I think they are gorgeous abstracts and I would love to do that too. I guess you could still do it in PhotoShop but Nikon makes it easy. I don’t want to switch brands as I can’t afford to do that. I sure wish Canon would add this in camera ability in the 5D successor though!
Yes, it is really going to be interesting to see what Canon does next. (And Sony, but that’s a different topic…)
For me, the really interesting thing about this new Nikon is that Nikon has not held back features at all, to the extent that this camera will likely cannibalize sales of the D3. That is a gutsy move, but I suspect that it will pay off for Nikon since there are likely to be more sales at the sub-$3000 price than at the higher price point of the D3, and the D3 was probably not considered to be a big seller anyway.
In the short term I think Canon could get away with introducing a “5DII” that goes to 16MP (that will make a lot of folks happy), adds the other features that they have incorporated into more recent cameras, increases burst rate to 4.5 or so, and perhaps adds at least some additional body sealing. That would not be an astounding camera, but I think it would still compete well with the D700, and for some users (e.g. landscape photographers and similar) it would still be the better of the two cameras. I don’t think Canon will be able to sustain a $3000+ price for this camera though.
I think Canon has some other issues to deal with, too – though they also have some strengths that they can still draw on. I really wonder what is going to happen in the medium term with the 1DMKIII. It really is a very capable body, but if Canon adds features to the 5D-type camera to make it competitive with the D700, the 1D is going to look a whole lot less attractive to quite a few buyers. It wouldn’t surprise me, given the Nikon announcement and the well-publicized focus issues with the 1DMKIII, if this model has a short lifespan and gets replaced with a full frame body in somewhat short order.
One place where I think Canon potentially has an ace up the sleeve is at the low end. As we know, they are apparently going to introduce a new 1000D sub-Rebel body. At first thought, it seems like Canon is going to have too many crop sensor bodies in the lower half of their market at that point: 1000D, XSi, and 40D. However, I’ve thought for some time that Canon would eventually migrate the 40D market segment to full frame. If they were to introduce a 12 MP full frame 40D (let’s call it the 40Df) for under $2000 they could sell a lot of them – in some ways they could almost do this with the existing 5D. At that point the cropped sensor 40D would go away. This has a secondary benefit for Canon. We’ve see the problem with intermodel competition between the Rebels and the X0D cameras. If Canon makes the Rebels too good the incentive to buy X0D bodies diminishes. If they don’t improve the Rebels, Nikon and others eat their lunch. If the 40D-type camera moves to full frame, the Rebels would be free to develop into Canon’s best crop sensor bodies, and this could be done without really increasing prices at all. If I were Canon I might even think about putting an upgraded Rebel – 12 MP, faster burst mode, etc. – into a 40D-like body and pricing it like the current Rebels. Now that would be a very competitive model in their largest market, the entry-level DSLR.
In any case, it seems that the progress has not stopped in the DSLR market – and, in fact, it looks like it is about to move faster once again.
Dan
I couldn’t agree more. I can’t wait to see the 5DII specs now, and then I’ll decide between those two, or buy an excellent used 5D mkI. (Wanna sell Dan?)