In case you haven't noticed one of the biggest complaints about this camera is it's ridiculous price .

1 cheap 24mp APS-C DSLR.
1 cheap 800mm f8 mirror box
an adaptep for the lens to the mount
a 2x teleconverter
a 1.4x teleconverter
crop down to 16mp

It's not AF and it's not stabilized but if you think you're seriously going to turn either of those things on at 3000mm you're not understanding the physics. Tripod and manual focus are a must.

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Well, I don't believe you can stack teleconverters. But in the spirit of discussion, let's say you can...

You'd then have a 2,240mm F22 MF FF mirror lens that on an APS-C body would yield a 3,360mm equivalent focal length. No cropping would be needed, and you'd have a longer equivalent length than the P1000 could produce and you'd have 24MP resolution, also above what the P1000 could produce. Assuming you purchased a used D7100 and used off-brand optics, you'd probably have spent $800-$1,200ish and weigh around 3.5 pounds. Not bad as that's about the same price and weight as the P1000.

But then when we get real, a cheap 800mm mirror lens is going to yield very poor image quality and be very difficult to focus. Adding TWO teleconverters (even if they were Nikon's latest greatest) is just going to destroy the little image quality you already have. And again, no AF and no VR.

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Sorry, mosc, but not only is your setup physically impossible, but it would be nearly impossible to shoot with, and the image quality would be truly horrible.

Royal Majesty explains it perfectly!
Its cheap as chips for what you get!

Doh?! "what is the point of this camera"
Name me another camera with a 3000 zoom lens for a grand?!
If you were shooting the night sky, going on a safari? this camera is ideal!!
If I wanted to try and impress people I would buy a 800mm Canon usm
Im getting one of these opens up new pictures!

Curious to know what you would refer to as carrying something big. :)

It's a travel camera for me. I don't generally take many photos at home, I've been here before.

For non-water-exposure (i.e. whitewater rafting) travel, consider the Sony RX10 series. I love my RX10M3 for what it is.

There are so many cameras out there better than the P1000 at everything... except that they can't get anywhere near 3,000mm. But plenty can get to around 600mm and that's plenty long for almost everything.

No point comparing it to tank like dslrs. Bridge cameras should be no heavier than compacts. It is a product for amateurs and enthusiasts.

It should be obvious by now i'm only complaining about the trend from manufacturers to move away from portability. If there were two types of bridge camera being released then i wouldn't care. Panasonic have increaded size and weight of theirs year on year without increasing zoom. Bigger sensor, better quality, weather resistant, iso etc. 4k video. Actually decreasing zoom, not extending it. Fz1000 is 16x. Given bridge cameras from 2012 (before increase in weight) cannot be bought new if/when they become damaged, it is frustrating.

I hear you, aehii. Size increase in bridge cameras that aren't going megazoom *may* be due to larger maximum lens apertures? I don't know as I am not really up to speed on the bridge camera market. It seems the biggest legitimate complaints about $400ish bridge cameras are poor ISO performance and slow lenses so it stands to reason that manufacturers would be or should be trying to increase maximum apertures if they're going to stick with the 1/2.3" sensor size. Sensor improvements would be nice too. But with such tiny pixels, organic light-gathering capability is pushing physics so I wouldn't expect really significant gains here. But there's room for improvement that would be greatly appreciated. Comes down to whether manufacturers want to spend the R&D money on this lower-margin market segment I suppose....

It would be nice to see a bridge camera using a 1/1.7" sensor with a zoom range of 20mm-300mm with max aperture of F2-F4 that could capture in RAW.

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I have a Canon S120 that has such a sensor and can capture in RAW and I've taken a ton of beautiful photos with it and am very fond of its sensor. With such a long lens with such a fast aperture, such a new bridge camera may still weigh about what a P900 (or at least a B700) does, and be about the same closed size. That may be bigger/heavier than what you're looking for, but wouldn't that be a GREAT camera!?

Again, the P1000 isn't a bridge camera. It's a 3,000mm lens. It's a megazoom camera, that throws in focal lengths under 600mm purely for convenience as an added benefit that shouldn't really be considered integral to the P1000. I'm with you in blaming manufacturers for not creating a new discrete "Megazoom" category. If they did, comparisons and discussions would be much more focused and fewer people would be upset about the size and weight of megazooms as it would be clear that the target market would consider a camera like the P1000 to actually be tiny and very light...

Meh, diffraction, shmiffraction. Since you're pretty much never going to have to crop/magnify your P1000 image, worst case is the image is a bit soft. But an image shot at 3,000mm equiv. is an image that probably simply otherwise could not have been obtained.

I'll take a bit of softness (maybe, we'll see...) over no shot at all, or a shot that had to be cropped down to no more than 3MP resolution to get the same perspective.

@NAG3LT:
Thanks for the explanation, this helps me to understand.

Optical laws dictate the following numbers:

Diffraction circles can be calculated for a given F/stop with a diffraction calculator like this site:
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm

It shows the calculated diffraction circle compared to a pixel pitch of a given camera model to establish the optimum F/stop number.

Calculated diffraction with F8 results in 10,6 um.
Pixel pitch of the Nikon-p1000 is 1,3 um
The diffraction circle @ F/8 spreads out over 8 by 8 pixels effectively reducing the overall sharpness to an equivalent of 16/(9x9) = 0.25 Mpixel

Diffraction concerns regarding the P1000, IMHO, are overblown. Frankly, my feeling on the whole about diffraction is that concerns are overblown. Diffraction discussions are really about splitting hairs. Technically, yes, images lose sharpness due to diffraction. But really not much at all and you generally have to be looking for it to find it. It's not like you're looking at a photo in a gallery or elsewhere that happened to be shot at F22, and say to yourself "Ooohhh, diffraction, bummer." And there are a lot of gallery photos shot at F22...

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I would argue that 24 mm to 200 mm is all one need ane thus other than sony rx100 vi everything else is waste.

This reply system...

A decreased zoom can be compensated by moving closer to the subject. I've used 25x zoom for 6 years, captured wild animals, outside and in zoos, people, birds etc. A camera three times as heavy and bulky can't be compensated. It specialising in taking moon shots means nothing for the other times you're lugging it around only using a fraction of the zoom.

You can't affect the angle when you zoom anyway, you always want to be closer. Speed and poor low light abilities always affect quality.

I wouldn't complain if companies kept the same size and weight from 2012 bridge cameras and improved everything where they could. There is no two types of bridge cameras from Panasonic. My fz150 cannot be bought new either. A bridge camera should be an all rounder.

@SueMadgic

"zxaar obviously leads a much duller life than we do"

You are very smart. You obviously figured everything out in life. Keep deluding.

Anyone who is a serious photography fan - should be delighted by this new model by Nikon. I'm an Olympus fan and film camera shooter from way back and then moved to Canon when they began to introduce auto-focusing lenses.

This would/should be a very fun camera to use and experiment with. Apparently many people are threatened by the size... but as many of us know, size matters, especially when it comes to 'reach'. I have been intrigued for a long while now with the Sony DSC-RX10 Mk III and even more with the Mk IV but that is a lot of dough to put out for a Bridge camera. I've also been a wee bit enamored with the Panasonic FZ1000 and FZ300 models (much more palatable to the wallet). But this new Nikon looks pretty fine.

I am looking forward to reviews to see how the sensor performs (IQ-wise and if it can/could handle lower light or not (thinking 'blue hour') or if it will strictly be a bright daylight camera...

Are you saying that this is a "bigger sensor" camera? Bigger than what??

The laws of physics would call for a larger, more expensive, heavier lens. Even a 1" sensor would call for a total redesign, yet would offer better IQ and speed. Here in Africa with angry animals about, there is no such thing as a too long lens. Yet I am heading towards a 80D with Sigma 18-300 lens and 2x teleconverter. A better compromise giving 960 shots and a much better sensor. And I can still stalk wildlife, having grown up in nature.

Compared to other cameras that tend to overheat it is huge.
Even without the lens it looks like it is the size of an entry level DSLR