For Those Who Are Doubtful of a D300s Replacement

As per Canon Rumors, the 7D will be getting a replacement announcement in Feb/March of next year. No details yet, but it looks like they will be replacing it, which means Canon is still addressing the "ProDX" market.  That being the case, do we think that Nikon will or will not replace the D300s (Canon 7D competitor). Do we think Nikon will not compete actively in this segment with similar body type, specs and price point? Opinions appreciated.

I doubt if this issue of a D300s replacement has ever been considered by jfriend, bobn2, n057, Kerry Pierce or the other regular contributors. Thanks for bringing a new topic for discussion.

There were 149 opinions on this subject at the top of the page you just posted on.

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Everything happens for a reason. #1 reason: poor planning
WSSA #44

Of course Nikon will respond...they are not ignorant of what Canon is doing...and will not simply give the market away to Canon.

Well-played.

In Sameer's defense, I just tried to post in the "Pro DX is Dead" thread and was informed that thread has reached its maximum number of posts. I want to beat that horse a little more just in case it isn't dead yet.

In 2006 I bought a fully-loaded, feature-rich Subaru Legacy sedan. I loved the car but it had no auxiliary input for mp3s, and the head unit was built into the climate control unit so you couldn't just replace the factory head unit with an after-market stereo that had aux input. By early 2006 iPods and other portable mp3 players had been the rage for quite a while. Every other comparable sedan I drove had aux audio input, but Subaru didn't have it anywhere in its product line. I drove that car for six years, using a variety of Rube Goldberg workarounds to get my mp3s onto the car stereo. A couple of months after I bought it, the dealer's new car sales manager called me up to do a satisfaction survey. I told him I loved it mechanically but that it lagged way behind the competition on important interior electronic features. He listened to my complaint and then said, "But we have all-wheel drive."

Fast forward to 2012. The D600 has 12 fewer autofocus points, 6 fewer cross-type points, no dedicated AF-On button, and can't be programmed to zoom the preview to 100% with the center select button. Nikon's response: "but this camera has full-frame."

My guess is the proDX 300 replacement has all been designed and ready for production when needed but Nikon may be waiting for one or more reasons: production ramp timing, existing inventory sell off, Canon feature/price strategy, show announcement timing, etc.

Competition with Canon has been discussed at length. Assuming that a 7D MarkII - by any name - is coming, no doubt Nikon will respond. This represents a real problem for Bob's arguments, because the EOS 7D is a $1599 camera (MSRP). I am dubious that a camera at the D7000's original price of $1199 can provide the functionality to compete with a 7D MarkII. Furthermore, D7000s are flying out the door at $999, easily outselling the EOS 60D. My thought is that Nikon will counter with a "D400" at say $1799 and continue selling the D7000 for some time, eventually replacing it at the $1199 price point.

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Jim

It doesn't represent a problem at all. The same rumour (about the 7D Mark II) form Northlight says that there will be no 70D, that is Canon are merging the top end (and they class both the 7D - about D7000 plus a little and the 60D - distinctly below the D7000 as 'pro'). So what this says is that with the 6D, Canon see room for only one APS-C model above the Rebels, now to be the 7D Mark II. I expect Nikon to think the same, and I expect that camera to be based on the D7000 platform, quite similar to the 7D platform - polymer chassis. The rumour is that the 7D Mark II might move to Canon's top end AF, in which case one might expect Nikon to do similar.

I think that the 7DII will stay or move down a bit, especially of there is no 70D. I see both of them selling at the $1500 point (MSRP)

Anyone see another D90 coming on? The Northlight rumour also suggests that the 7D will keep on selling for a while yet, at somewhere close to the $1k mark.

My thought is that they won't.

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Bob

That is highly unlikely, when a company has put that investment into R & D and tooling etc, they want to make it pay as quickly as possible. Unused capital investment costs money.

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Bob

And it says nothing about an EOS 60D replacement, one way or another.

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Jim

It's a rumor, alright. There's no detail whatsoever other than "in 6 months time, Canon will have a new camera". Right now, it's difficult to treat this as credible.

Sure.

The question is, and what's been at the heart of many discussions here, is what that replacement will be. I believe next camera in D7k line gets a specification boost, and effectively serves as D300s replacement.

Canon isn't doing much here, either. 7D is over 3 years old already.

Why would they wait for Canon to show their hand? If Nikon had the D300s replacement ready, they'd want to make as much money as they can, and giving Canon time to provide a competitor isn't the way to do it.

Why wait for existing inventory to clear? On Nikon's Imaging Products webpage, you can still see, for example, both D5100, D3100 and D3k listed alongside the new cameras. Go to lenses section, and, same thing, old lenses listed alongside new. Nikon didn't wait to clear the stock of 50/1.8 AF to start producing the 50/1.8 AF-S. And so on.

It's the CR, which quotes Northlight as the source of the rumour (Source: [NL]). And when you go to Northlight it says

Unlike previous comments, it was suggested that there would be no 70D for quite some time (if at all), with the current 7D being continued, at reduced price, to target the 60D market. This was partly to see the effects of the 6D and worldwide market for full frame.

But arguing about 'which rumour' is a bit silly really. They are rumours, after all.

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Bob

Waiting only makes sense if they want another sensor version in the D400, which I would expect them to.

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hobby aviation photographer

Why do people pretend that Nikon can either make a D7000 style camera or a D300 style camera. Nikon will make a new camera, they are not forced to use an existing body.

It is interesting to see that Canon is considering dropping the lower model and not the top DX body. But then what could Nikon stop from releasing a D400 at 1599$? 6FPS, D300 like controls, new body, 51 point AF.... does not sound impossible to me. The D7X00 could come later and the the video orientated camera in their line-up.

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hobby aviation photographer

I still don't think that there is market room for two bodies, simply because the D600 (and the 6D) will be sucking a lot of cash out of the market place around $2k. So, I think one body. Then there is the question of which platform it will be built on. Companies like Canon and Nikon don't update the basic platforms of their cameras very often, new models will share the subassemblies and mechanical designs like the mirrorbox, shutter, aperture drive, AF drive, chassis construction and so on. These can be refined and improved, but they are rarely redesigned because a complete ground up redesign is a big risk (witness the oil spot problem with the D600, which will be essentially a new platform because although similar to the D7000, most things will have to be redesigned for the bigger format). The D300 shared the platform that essentially came from the D2, went into the D200. The D3x00 and D5x00 use the platform from the D40. The D3 was something new, and has gone into the D700, D800, D4. The last new DX platform was the D7000, which superseded the D70 platform which was the basis for the D50, D80, D90 - and had the obligatory intro problems for a new platform. So, it is clear that Nikon would not have developed a new platform just for a single model, so it seems likely to me that this D7000 platform will be the basis for the new top end DX. probably it can be developed to 8FPS or so, very likely it can take the CAM 3500 AF module, and adding extra controls is trivial. So, the question is, what is the camera that Nikon will choose to make from that, and what will they call it. Both of these are marketing issues really.

I can see as an outside chance they might choose to make two versions of what is the same camera to squeeze in two price points, perhaps using CAM 4800 in one and CAM 3500 in the other, maybe slowing one down an FPS or two (like they did the D700), maybe a few control differences, like adding the AF-ON and replacing the mode dial assembly with a D4 style quad button array. Those are trivial enough that the two cameras could be produced on the same line, and that relative production volumes could be changed on the fly, rather like the D800 and D800E variants, where Nikon has worked it so they have minimal changes in stocking or production. If they do that, I would expect the lower one to be the D7100 (or maybe D7200) and the upper to be the D9000.

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Bob

Well, I think they will have an evolution of a current body, but I think if they built a 1500$ DX camera they can either improve the D700 body or make the D300 body simpler in cost to meet the price point.

Looking at the D7000 and the D600 the price of the body might not be of such a huge importance anyway and some small adjustment will have to be made anyway as well. And as CR suggests that the 7dIi might get a new name, I think Nikon will do the same and launch a D9000 or something.

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hobby aviation photographer

http://www.canonrumors.com/2012/11/february-march-are-announcement-months-for-canon-cr2/

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Jim