Nikon D3100

[David Kilpatrick]

The information is now public, they have also lived up to their promise to redesign the 24-120mm leaving Canon in desperate need to rework the (poor) 24-105mm L.

The D3100 uses the NEX sensor, basically, but outputs a slightly different video standard 1080/24p and has the ISO range extended to start at 100. It claims to have full time servo AF in Live View mode including face tracking, which indicates that Nikon SWM (AF-S and AF-I) lenses have a motor which can be adapted to operate using contrast detection - Sony may, or may not, share this potential.

dPreview comment that the D3100 can 'only record clips up to 10 minutes long' - well, that is not an 'only' for Nikon, as every single other DSLR in their range can 'only' record 720p not 1080p, and 'only' 5 minutes! So Nikon has, in an entry level £499 body, leapfrogged even the D3S with full HD and double the clip length.

Their new 55-300mm VR lens standard (effectively replacing the 70-300mm or 55-200mm, but for DX only) looks like a trendsetter, and their decision to make a 28-300mm FX lens for the D700 etc points to some confidence that the full frame market is more generalised than we all might think.

It's rather funny in a way - you get the NEX+CLASSICLENS thing where on dPreview, you'd swear no-one wanted a NEX for anything except use with Leica and Zeiss glass; while Nikon sees its high end full frame users as wanting a walkaround superzoom...

David

[Birma]

The D3100 spec. looks very respectable - can't see the A290 and 390 doing well in comparison. Interesting that Nikon are also refreshing their range from the bottom. Where are the D300s and D90 successors?

[David Kilpatrick]

Photokina, you can be sure. Either that or the D3100 will wipe out the D5000 sales - etc.

David

[bfitzgerald]

Nikon will surely replace the D5000. Not sure on the price of this though at £575 it would want to be a lot cheaper on the street!
Much needed IMO as the D3000 was dated and uninteresting.
This leaves the A290 and A390 as a dead product range (if the Nikon is priced ok in the shops) Canon need to update their entry model too that's old as well.

[alphaomega]

bfitzgerald cannot wait to get his shot in against Sony:

This leaves the A290 and A390 as a dead product range (if the Nikon is priced ok in the shops)

I thought it would be reasonable to give Sony a chance to reveal their A33/55v/560 and 580 before we compare Sony's range with Nikon or Canon. I actually thought Barry had moved to Nikon or Petax already.
Nothing on Thom Hogan's site yet. I am as certain as I can be that there will be an upgrade to D90 and/or D300s at Photokina and Nikon will use the Sony 16Mp sensor to try and "kill" Canon's 7D. It just makes so much sense to me. I cannot see Nikon going their own way on APS-C. Look at Samsung and their DSLR/sensor try. one only at 14Mp and out of DSLRs. I can see Nikon continuing with their D3/D700 FF sensor trying for say 16Mp and as good speed and ISO as the current models to outdo Canon's 1D. It will be interesting if Sony comes out with a final FF sensor at 30/32Mp and the kind of ISO performance it is claimed the new A55 can deliver. If that is the case I am sure that Nikon will hitch on with a D4x. Sony can then claim that they have reached the end of the FF road and it is not possible to make further improvements that can be noticed by the human eye. (Obviously they would not make such a claim public.) They could then finish R&D investment as predicted by Thom H. and have a sensor that can run a number of years and earn back the investment.

[peterottaway]

From the technical perspective Sony has had this sensor in production for some time now. There should be no unpleasant surprises with quality control or the delivery of sufficient quantity.

From the financial point of view this is a bread and butter camera which may not make much money per unit sold but is important to Nikons bottom line. It needs to be in full scale production and distributed well before the retailers receive their Christmas sales stock. And to create customer awareness before the sales period begins. Thats also why we have had the announcements about new P & S ranges.

[WaltKnapp]

It's rather funny in a way - you get the NEX+CLASSICLENS thing where on dPreview, you'd swear no-one wanted a NEX for anything except use with Leica and Zeiss glass; while Nikon sees its high end full frame users as wanting a walkaround superzoom...

David

Nikon understands DSLR users way better than Sony or DPreview's Sony users. I've wanted to see high end superzooms for a long time and we keep getting offered only short range zooms at the high end. Walkaround carting several big lenses instead of just one....

Walt

[Greg Beetham]

The problem with FF superzooms is they are usually either slow too make them a reasonable weight and size with a big vari focal range, or they are big and heavy if they make them fast and optically corrected to a high order, and expensive. How many people are going too buy a FF 28-300 superzoom if it's big and heavy and costs a fortune, just too emulate what an APS-C camera can already do with a smaller lighter DT18-200 lens.
Greg

[KevinBarrett]

Greg, I think you hit the nail on the head. Superzoom lenses are already a compromise for size and weight over quality, so it makes little sense to offer them for the quality-over-compactness full-frame cameras (unless your FF cameras are flying off the shelves or something). Still, it would make sense for Sony to follow Nikon's lead with a 24-120mm type lens just to broaden the system appeal (oh wait, that's the 16-80 on APS-C!). The current 24-70/2.8 and 28-75/2.8 are an OK spread for price, but the system needs to support more uses, not budgets.

[bakubo]

Nikon is not alone. Canon, Tamron, and Sigma also have FF 28-300mm lenses so this isn't something new.

[Greg Beetham]

I guess we APS-Cers could hang about until those full framer guys get tired of lifting heavy things and snap up a good 42-450 on the cheap.
Greg

[alphaomega]

Ref D3100 sensor originator and producer, Thom Hogan is now on to the subject and I quote from his 20 August comments on the subject:

One curious aspect of the D3100 is the sensor. "Nikon developed" appears in the marketing materials, and the sensor is indeed not the same one as in the Sony NEX5 (as originally speculated) in several key ways, one of which is physical size, the other pixel count. The Nikon 14mp sensor has slightly more pixel count in a slightly smaller area than the Sony. Indeed, the area is no longer what I'd call DX. The D5000, D90, and D300 have a sensor area of 23.6 x 15.8 (28.4 diagonal), while the D3100 has a sensor area of 23.1 x 15.4 (27.8 diagonal). This represents a loss of about 2% in image circle coverage needed. We're now at 1.55x crop as opposed to the old 1.52x. It's an unusual change, but the bottom line is that the Nikon and Sony 14mp sensors are indeed different in important ways. But I'll repeat: the proof is in the pudding. We need to test the new sensor on live subjects before making any useful pronouncements about it.

Update: I've now heard even more details about the D3100 sensor and from a few sources closer to Nikon Japan. It does indeed appear that Nikon has moved to producing their own sensors. They may be licensing or cooperating on some of the underlying technologies, but it appears that Nikon has decided that Nikon DSLRs will in the future have Nikon-controlled and Nikon-exclusive sensors. That they haven't chosen to make a bigger deal of this is strange. And some parts of Nikon appear not to have gotten the memo on this, as I've seen quotes from Nikon personnel in some subsidiaries that say "Sony sensor."

The NEX sensor size is 23.4 x 15.6mm (APS-C size) i.e. larger in both dimensions. So perhaps Nikon are on their way out of Sony as even their APS-C sensor supplier. That puts pressure on the Alpha division to conjure up additional sales to fill a rather black hole in Sony's sensor production schedules. It will be interesting to see how this new Nikon sensor compares with that found in the A33 and A560, rumoured to be just "round the corner".

[alphaomega]

D3100 sensor issue continued. This new Nikon sensor also explains the D300s with the old 12Mp CMOS Sony sensor. The new one was not available for a D400 and they did not want Sony's 14Mp CMOS or Sony would not sell it to them as they knew then that Nikon would go APS-C on their own. Interesting times ahead.

[David Kilpatrick]

Well, identical and known Sony sensors used in different cameras have been described in the past with just as much variation in physical size - and I get a different pixel count from any sensor just by using a different de-Bayer process.

Thom Hogan needs to check back on the stated dimensions of all past sensors with known common origins, before being 100% sure. Since Nikon actually make the fabrication plant for the sensor supplied to Sony, it would be very easy for them to have their own line.

This sensor appears to be very slow (fps wise) and to offer ISO100, so it is certainly not identical.

David

[Greg Beetham]

Yep and it get complicated by not knowing what dimension is being given half the time, the whole sensor including the border, the sensel area only, or the actual active sensel area, I get the impression that there is some sensels that are not 'active' on a given sensor, maybe because of the constrictions of the de-Bayer design perhaps.
Greg