1432 - Re-Make/Re-Model II

I suppose all the Canon users among you couldn’t care less. Well, you probably could if you were an Olympus user. But for the Nikonians among us this was an interesting day.

It’s Photokina again, and this time Nikon has presented two very expensive lenses, the long expected 35/1.4 and the prohibitively expensive new version of the 200/2.0 VR II. That’s not the interesting point though. It’s the new camera, the D7000, the official successor to the very successful D90, that got all the attention.

The D7000 has a 100% viewfinder, something that the D90 had not. It has a magnesium alloy body, just like the D300(s). It has support for metering with AI and AI-S manual focus lenses. It has the virtual horizon, the best video of any current Nikon, it has 16 megapixel, ISO 6400 is a regular value and Hi-2 now goes up to ISO 25600, it has AF fine tuning, and it will be available at $1200. That is cheaper than the D300s, while it certainly will have better image quality.

Sounds like a no-brainer, huh? Indeed, this is the best camera in that price segment. In fact there are only two features of the D300, that the new D7000 does not have. First is the 51 point auto-focus. 35 points are not shabby and with my shooting style I won’t recognize the difference, but nevertheless. It’s the second though, that breaks the deal for me:

It’s trivial. It is a deliberate castration of an otherwise incredibly good camera. It’s only a software issue, and it wouldn’t cost Nikon a Yen to support it. Fact is, they see it as a distinguishing trait of their professional models, and that is, that you can program the OK button (center of the 4-way selector) to magnify the image to 100%.

I may be stupid, but I can’t live without that. It’s great. It’s brilliant. It’s the only way it can be. Uhh … not that I have any need for a new camera (on the other hand, don’t we always like new cameras?), but I really, really like this D7000. Still, without that button, no way.

It was a similar situation with the D700. OK, it was expensive, OK, I would have had a wide-angle problem, but the D700 lacks one other thing that I can’t live without, and that is the 100% viewfinder. Similar with the D3. It lacked sensor cleaning. The D3s has everything and it is the ideal camera, only that I can’t afford it. Well, I could, but it would be stupid for someone who does not earn real money with his images. Thus you see me waiting for the D400.

Will it come? Some people say that there is not much left, that the D7000 does not have. Some say the D300s was the last professional DX camera made by Nikon. I say I don’t believe it. Some more speed, some more focus points, as long as I don’t lose anything of what I have, these features will be enough for me to shell out the money. Sometime in Spring I think. Everybody else who is not spoilt by that damn button, go and buy a D7000. This is an incredibly hot camera, if there ever was one 🙂

The Song of the Day is one more time “Re-Make/Re-Model” from the self-titled Roxy Music debut album. Hear it on YouTube.