On December 1, after months of speculation on Internet forums and after a series of strange leaks and rumors, Nikon announced the D3X, a 24.5 megapixel digital SLR. The D3x is basically a D3 with the fat sensor Sony uses in it's A900.
This was an eagerly anticipated camera, and while it is directed towards the medium format market, what makes this introduction so perplexing is that Nikon priced it at $8,000.00. This is too high for the normal Nikon user base and any medium format user looking at it would wonder why they need to give up their own system at that price. For comparison, the Sony A900 is priced at $3,000.00.
Marketing-wise this makes no sense whatsoever. First of all there is this little thing called a global recession right now, which Nikon seems oblivious to. Second, they really missed a huge opportunity here. In the history of devices in the computer field, and face it, digital cameras are just that now, high prices are a relic of the past. The ongoing thrust over the last few decades has been to put more and more power in the hands of the average user while maintaining price at the same level as previous generations. For me, it is mind-blowing sometimes to think that I can get a machine with a Quad-Core proc and monstrous hard drive and 4 gig of RAM for under $1,800.00. Had Nikon priced this camera in the $5,000.00 range as the D2X was, and then reduced the D3 to around $3,999.00 or so they would see a flood of orders. As it is the D3X hits the market with a great thud.
While we have yet to see reviews of the camera or sample images, I have decided that for landscape work if I want more megapixels I'll just shoot a few frames vertically and stitch in Photoshop. For other types of photography I’d rather put money into studio lighting or lenses.
The A900 has issues with ISO performance, and many are waiting to see how ISO performance on the D3X compares to the D3. In addition the D3X produces RAW images that are at minimum 50 MB file size, more than twice as large as a D2X RAW file and almost 4 times as large as a lossless compressed D700 file. That is a lot of data to be pushing around. The decision to provide dual Compact Flash card slots in the D3 now makes even more sense, and write speeds to cards will also need to be tested.
This is not inherently bad. We expect that as technology matures we will be able to handle larger and larger chunks of data. The question is, what does this do to the speed at which images can be captured and written to storage? Large file sizes also point to the fact that if you want a camera with this capability, make sure the machine you use in post can handle larger file sizes as well. In Photoshop, a few adjustment layers, an image correction layer, and a duplicate background layer can quickly swell the file size to 3-400 MB or more.
IMHO this is Nikon's first generation 24 mp camera. It's an interesting implementation, but I most likely will wait till the next gen emerges in 3 years or so. The D3X sensor will also show up in the D700 body at some point. Nikon always does this – they start out with their best sensors in the high end and then migrate them downwards. It will be interesting to see what the price is when they do. For now I like the flexibility and portability of the D300-D700 combo, and I see little benefit to upgrade at this price point.
