So, Nikon introduced a new “Big Kahuna” in it’s digital SLR camera lineup, the 24.5 MP D3x. It’s specifications are impressive and after looking at released sample photos the results are impressive as well.
I’m sure there’s photographers who will put this added resolution and image fidelity to excellent use but I doubt my photos would immediately improve by doubling the pixel count.
For now my cameras (Nikon D300 & D700) and my abilities seem well matched. I’m very happy and content at the moment.
Thus the D3x barely moves my “want gauge” from the zero peg.
That could be due to it’s the price of $8,000, or because each photo could consume nearly 138mb of storage providing a little over 7 photos per gigabyte. Wow, my 8 GB CF cards would only hold 57-58 photos!
Whatever the reasons, the D3x is so far beyond anything I need at this point in time that it’s not showing up as a blip on my gotta have gadget radar. However, I look forward to viewing the results of others who may use this wonderful new tool.
Of course if someone wants to give me one…we’ll talk! ;-)
Update: It seems the Nikon photo world is having some major heartburn with Nikons pricing of the new D3x:
…youâll hear very little of the positive attributes of this camera online right now. Most of the pundits are consumed by the singular issue of price. $7995.95 to be precise.
The collective photography punditry community seems to have one thing to say about this, and not in a good way: Holy frakking mother of crap!… – James Duncan Davidson
My take is they made it, they can price it as they wish. The final price will be eventually decided by the market anyway.
“Reflecting Pond” – The photo was taken en route to the Pee Dee River photo location I posted of yesterday. I saw this near perfect reflection and immediately pulled off the side of the road to take a couple of shots. When you have a scene like this the rule of thirds often gets put aside and I centered it for a balanced composition.
Nope! Doesn’t even flutter my needle. The price, for sure is one thing that is very “not good”. I don’t think that Nikon user’s are used to such prices. Canon has had a camera up in the stratosphere, but not Nikon. Now, the user community probably won’t buy. That’s a hefty price to pay for some pixels that probably won’t matter. Also, I’m with you, those files are too big. They take up too much space, time, and memory.
Curious where you got the number on the file size. The 5D Mark II, which is almost 22 MP, produces RAW files at full resolution that are under 25 megabytes apiece. Even a 16bit TIFF at 25 MP likely wouldn’t consume 138 megs…
That said, I agree on the main point: the $8k price tag is absurd. What *are* they thinking? Is it like corporate software sales, where the larger “professionals” won’t even consider something if it’s below The Obscene Amount of Money Price Point? Like it provides some extra industry cred to be using an $8k camera vs. a similarly capable $3k camera? Just as corporations swear by Oracle for hundreds of thousands of dollars per license, when most of the time they’d be fine with the couple hundred dollars licensing costs of MySQL.
@Seinberg: Hi. That 138mb number for file size is from Nikon. I’ve added a link to it in the above post. I hope they would know what size raw image files the D3x produces. :-)
As far as price, the market place is a great leveler. With a little time I suspect that price will come down. At this moment it’s only really affecting those professionals who have an investment in Nikon and “must” have that extra resolution (they can probably easily afford it) or those enthusiast who “must” have the latest-and-greatest for bragging rights.
I suspect also there will is another consumer 24.5MP model in the works, much like the D700 is to the D3….humm, perhaps a “D900” that is more reasonably priced in a smaller package?