NervousPete wrote:
The next nikon camera appears to be the D7000, which should be formally announced with tons of juicy specs sometime mid September. Possibly the 15th, people are saying, with their fingers. Next year I'm planning on upgrading my camera to a better one, selling on my beloved and still damn sexy D40x to help scrape the funds together for a new one. (Lord Rixondale's wife be interested.)
So, why am I interested in the D7000? Well, apparently it does video at 1980xsomething but I'm not terribly excited by that. It'll be nice, but I'd be perfectly happy with a slightly cheaper camera without video. As raised earlier in the thread it uses a new sensor system, excellently called EVIL, which apparently dispenses with a mirror. I have absolutely no idea what this means, but people out there sound excited. Unspecifically excited that is, they don't actually say why its exciting - possibly because they do not know themselves.
No, the thing that really interests me is the promise of very little noise at high ISO's. This is the clincher for me as I love shooting in low light and am pretty frustrated at anything above ISO 400 on the D40x. The D90 is supposed to have decent ISO handling, but the D7000 is rumoured to be on the level of a hi-end professional camera.
Even if it turns out not be quite the must buy, hopefully it will drive down prices on the lovely D90 so I can pick up one instead.
How much will the D7000 retail for? No one knows yet, but educated guesses put it at $1200 or£800. Will this America trip be the last big hurrah for my D40x? Only time, will tell.
The D7000 won't be EVIL. That's an entirely new system that's being devised to compete with the expensive prosumer micro 4/3rds cameras made by Panasonic (GF1) and Olympus (Pen). There're no hard facts about this system as yet, but Nikon have set up a place holder page counting down to an announcement on 20 September (the day before Photokina kicks off) and there's wild speculation about what this may be.
The D7000 is due to be announced on 15 September.
Go have a rummage around
http://www.nikonrumors.comThe D7000 will still be DX sized but it's using tech from the the D700 so it will have much better noise reduction at high speeds.