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.