D300s Successor-D400, what and when

DaveyJ

I feel compelled to comment on Msmoto's price guess for the D400 when it comes out initially. If it is that high I doubt I would jump on that camera. The D400 should have some awesome features as it is easily the most anticipated camera in Nikon history. Yet the 80-400VR highway robbery has little appeal to me. If it is priced that high I will wait for a fairly long period before I make any move to buy either. I did learn a long time ago not to try to make all my profit and one sale. Nikon will do better if it prices initial offerings at a more realistic price. The D7100 profit margin will make Nikon more money than it would had the camera been priced several hundred dollars higher.

ChromiumPrime

Yup! 16 MP without an OLPF takes my vote as well :-bd... but hopefully a new one and not the same one from the D7K.

@DaveyJ Regarding Nikon pricing in general, Nikon has been desperately trying to somehow control prices here in the US... and from what I see so far I think they're yet to find anything that works.

First it was their no-discount-no-promotion-minimum-selling-price policy. Then (almost two years later) we started seeing some pretty decent rebates (on older gears and a few promotion on some new gear). At the same time new Nikon gear is being priced astronomically high.

I don't think they did as well as they thought they would with the new policy so now the new game will be price high at first, discounts and rebates later. Let's see how long that lasts...

As for the D400, if I was to guess then I'd say $1900 if it's regular type body and $2400 for a D4 type body.

donaldejose

A $300 price increase for a built in vertical grip seems reasonable. A $500 price increase for a built in vertical grip seems too high. $1800 for a regular body and $2200 for a body with a built in vertical grip would be more in line with the price point occupied by the D300 and D300s.

ChromiumPrime

I thought about that but my logic is if the D400 does come in a D4 type body then I expect there to be more than just the grip in terms of pro features but you could be right too.

PB_PM

A $300 price increase for a built in vertical grip seems reasonable. A $500 price increase for a built in vertical grip seems too high. $1800 for a regular body and $2200 for a body with a built in vertical grip would be more in line with the price point occupied by the D300 and D300s.

Hate to break it to you, but the D300 was $1899 on release, as was the D300s. I wouldn't be at all surprised by a $1999 price tag for the D300 like body D400. If they went D4 style, more like $2499. The D4 style bodies are more than just a built in grip, they have faster processors and other higher end features. If Nikon made the D400 that way, which I highly doubt they will, they would charge more than $300 over $1800.

SquamishPhoto

I thought about that but my logic is if the D400 does come in a D4 type body then I expect there to be more than just the grip in terms of pro features but you could be right too.

I agree and I think that those other features would be quite welcome and also cost a lot, so I doubt this imaginary camera would be anywhere south of $5000. The way that Nikon distinguished the price and feature set of the D4 and D800 it would seem odd that a camera that was essentially just a D4 with DX guts would check in at price point as low as $2500. They'd have to make it out of plastic.

spraynpray

$5000 for a DX pro sounds like suicide to me!

Kuv

Anything north of 3k is out of the question. They'd sell less than a dozen.
I doubt we'll see anything higher than 2300.

sevencrossing

One thing i learnt from this thread.

No matter what the specification a new camera has , no matter how may different models Nikon introduce, they will never keep all of you lot happy

The D7100 provides an awful lot of bangs for your bucks

The D800 is an amazing camera, for those us who put resolution, dynamic range and color fidelity as a priority

The D4 is brilliant for those who something that is virtual bullet proof; will see in the dark and shoot like a machine gun

Yes it it would be nice if the features of all 3 could be combined in a single camera
will we get it ? time will tell

Msmoto

@Kuv

I love this optimism...."less than a dozen" )

Price..yes, I think $2300 is close...

donaldejose

PB_PM: Before I posted those prices I checked DP Review to get the list prices of the D300 and D300s at launch. They report the D300 as $1800 and the D300s as $1700, hence my estimate of $1800 for the D400. Perhaps, DP Review prices are incorrect. But I think Nikon will try to price a basic D400 body under the $2100 for a D600 so it could go to $2000 with something like $2300 for an included vertical grip.

spraynpray

I don't buy the need for a great amount of correlation between FX/DX on this Donald. The D600 is the most basic FX so a consumer level and the D400 will be pro so comparing prices just isn't 'eggs with eggs'.

donaldejose

spraynpray: Very true, linkage not needed. In the past FX was considerably more expensive than DX; approximately a $1,000 price gap. This time around I suspect Nikon would close that gap because the entry point into FX has dropped about $800. Thus, a top end DX and low end FX could sell in about the same price point. Maybe Nikon will price the top end DX model considerably higher than the low end FX model. But D300 and D300s users will be expecting any D400 replacement to be right at $2,000 and not up at $3000 even if it has a built in vertical grip. You can buy a vertical grip for about $300 bringing the price of a D400 plus vertical grip to about $2,300. The D7100 is $1,200. It seems unlikely that Nikon will create more than a thousand dollar gap between the D7100 and the D400. This is the logic behind my suggested prices. It will be interesting to see what Nikon is able to do and the price they put on it.

spraynpray

It will indeed.

All we need now is the #@!? camera!

SquamishPhoto

$5000 for a DX pro sounds like suicide to me!

Well, if these guys believe that they're going to get a fully pro body for less than a D800 they're crazy. It doesn't matter if the sensor is cropped, if its got mag body with built in grip,, 30+ raw buffer, top of line AF module, they'd be insane to sell it for $2000. I've heard a lot crazy shit on this forum, but this one takes the cake.

donaldejose

Mike: I agree Nikon couldn't just put a DX sensor into a D4 body, leave everything else the same and sell it for $2,000. Something has to give. To replace the D4 FX sensor with a DX sensor would save Nikon perhaps $500 to $1,000, if that was the only difference, which places the new camera price at about $5,000. If the D400 were to have a built-in battery grip for less than $5,000 it would have to be constructed differently than simply replacing the FX sensor in a D4 with a DX sensor.

Remember the D700 pro body for about $3,000 was sold with a DX sensor as the D300 for about $2,000. The two bodies even used the same battery grip. Was the cost to Nikon $1,000 less for the DX sensor than it was for the FX sensor? Now if you take a D800 selling for $3,000 and remove the FX sensor to be replaced with a DX sensor how much money do you save? Maybe $1,000 or maybe $500. How much does it cost Nikon to produce a battery grip for the D800? Maybe $200 since they sell for about $300. So how much would it cost Nikon to make a new magnesium body with a built -n battery grip in the first place? It should not take more material and parts or cost than the sum of the D800 body and the D800 battery grip. Simply make the body shell bigger and put the parts you otherwise would put into the separate grip right into that new larger body shell. Instead of building down by decontenting a D4 body, just extend the D800 body shell to include the parts otherwise sold separately as an attachable battery grip. It wouldn't be a D4 shell but it would be a full metal shell with a build in vertical grip. That is the idea. The cost should not be more than the cost for a separate body and battery grip combined. One rumor I read was that Cannon had a prototype of something similar. But of course, who knows. It is all speculation. I am surprised Nikon can keep as good a lid on new products as they do. Nikon has fewer leaks than the US government!

spraynpray

@squamish: "Well, if these guys believe that they're going to get a fully pro body for less than a D800 they're crazy. It doesn't matter if the sensor is cropped, if its got mag body with built in grip,, 30+ raw buffer, top of line AF module, they'd be insane to sell it for $2000. I've heard a lot crazy s**t on this forum, but this one takes the cake."

LOL! I agree some of this thread is funny!

Consider though that one can pick up a D7000 for under £600 new and that even has most of a mag body so yes I agree the D400 is likely to be fairly expensive, but I'll have a bet with you that it will be well under 3K. I would be surprised if it is more than 2400.

There, I've said it now, we'll see later how wrong I am!

PB_PM

If there is a D400 it will keep the D300 form factor, and likely price point. I'm not even slightly convinced that it will have a built in grip. Otherwise they might as well call it the D4dx, rather than D400.

donaldejose

Now that is a name I had not thought of: the D4dx. Cool. But what would be the practical benefit if it is only $500 or $1,000 less expensive? I wonder if any birders who pay that much for the extra reach in a rugged body?

If NIkon builds a D400 with a built-in battery grip it won't use the same body as the D4. It will be new body and must be considerably less expensive or it won't fit into the price point of the D300s replacement.

PB_PM

How many times do we have to cover this? DX does not give more reach. (

ChromiumPrime

@SquamishPhoto I believe the operative words I used were D4 type body with more pro features. I don't think anyone was talking about a fully pro body for those prices.

SquamishPhoto

So, you want something that looks kinda like a smallish D4 but with some plastic parts to save on cost and only a modest buffer, modest AF module? I just don't get why that would be desirable to anyone. Who really wants a cheap-o D4? A far more likely product is a rugged D800 clone with subtle differences, mostly speed over MP and the obvious crop sensor. $2000 or under would be my guess and $300+ for the grip.

donaldejose

Right, and if you built it as one piece instead of in two parts the cost would be about $2,300 for a D400 with a built-in battery grip. It is just an idea. Would it sell? I suspect as much as a D400 without a battery grip would sell. One downside, with a removable battery grip you can get two batteries in and with a built-in grip you likely only have one battery.

PB_PM

Sure, but with the built in grip, it could use the D4 battery.

Andrewz

Just so everyone doesn't thinking, everyone here has gone off the deep end! I want my D400 in the exact same body as my D300, it's perfect! Just upgrade all the internal bits that will give me great photos.