Cameras and Photography Explained

We’ve been getting a lot of clues about upcoming products lately from Nikon, partly because they underestimated demand on a number of items, partly because Nikon has let things leak. So I thought it worthwhile to update my 2009 predictions for Nikon.

Let’s start with bodies. I predicted five Nikon bodies. The D3x (though I thought it might be called something else) was introduced as expected. None of my other predictions have come to bear (yet), though we got a bonus body in the D5000, which I wasn’t expecting. That leaves four others, and I’m reasonably certain at this point we’ll get three of them. Why? Because Nikon cut back production so severely late last year and early this year that when they halted production on certain models but demand continued higher than expected, they ran out of cameras to distribute to the subsidiaries.

Normally Nikon tries to have a very small supply of cameras remaining when a new model replacing it is introduced. But I’ve now received numerous reports from dealers worldwide that Nikon is no longer taking new orders in some regions for two models, the D60 and D300. That corresponds to two cameras that I predicted would be replaced, and I believe that we’ll see those replacements announced at the end of July or early August.

The D60 and maybe the D40 will be replaced by a D3000, while the D300 will be replaced by a D300s. Neither update is groundbreaking, but both push both the quality and feature levels of these cameras upwards. I say maybe to the D3000 replacing the D40 as there still seems to be some D40 inventory availability for the moment, unlike the D60. Both of these predictions aren’t much of a prediction any more: I’ve now received information from plenty of sources on both to say that they’re a lock to appear in the next set of announcements.

I also predicted a D700x at the end of the year, and I still stand by that. I’d guess November announcement.

That leaves only the special interest camera, which seems to have gone missing in action. Since it was targeted for the home Japanese market, I wonder if it has been put off due to the recession.

I’m going to add a camera to my predictions: a minor update to the D3, called the D3s. I don’t know when that will happen, though. It could happen as early as the D300s announcement, though I really doubt it. I think it's more likely early next year. But it will happen.

Here’s the new expected Nikon DSLR line summary as I see it:

Remember, this is my current prediction, and is not a certainty. Still, I’m more confident of this than what I wrote my predictions early last November. I don’t know about you, but that looks like a very robust lineup at the top (D300s, D700, D700x, D3s, D3x). The only thing missing is a top-of-the-line DX body in the D3 frame, and you’d have a super strong pro lineup that no other maker could match.

What looks a bit weak in the expected lineup is the D90. The D5000 is so close to the D90 that the D90 looks a bit strange in this lineup, especially when you consider that the D5000 seems to produce better JPEG image quality than the D90 out of the same sensor.

Meanwhile, lenses seem to be going out of stock, too. Some of this seems like it is just planned obsolescence (the elimination of many manual focus lenses, for instance). Some are hints of something to come.

Lenses are harder to predict than cameras, as the process used to create them have a bit more date variability in them, the individual designers have a bit more leeway in specification, and the testing and preproduction process they go through doesn’t expose them to the same leakage as the bodies most of the time (though lenses made in SE Asia do tend to leak into the Chinese press early). Glass in some pro lenses takes as much as a year to go from start in the kiln to finished, polished glass ready to stick in a lens. That’s probably why there are no 600mm f/4 lenses to buy: Nikon underestimated demand, they sold out what they made, and it takes a long time to get new glass ready to restart or increase production of that lens.

I’m not going to change any of my lens predictions at this point other than to say I expect to see a number of lenses introduced at the D3000 and D300s announcements. At least one DX zoom (again), a couple of primes, plus a couple of the things we've been waiting for (see left column). Someone I trust told me that we’d have more lens announcements this year than in most years, but so far we’re behind the normal pace.

The real question, of course, is why is Nikon consistently underestimating demand lately? End of life products are running out of inventory before the new ones appear, and all the highly regarded products seem to have spates of low or no inventory available.

I’ll offer a conjecture: the serious photographer that is buying those highly regarded products is typically either a pro or a hobbyist. The pros have to keep up with the Joneses: the competition for images at the top is so intense that submitting 12mp images when your competitor is submitting 21mp images puts you at an immediate disadvantage, just as not being able to work at ISO 3200 with decent quality puts you at disadvantage. So, the pro is still buying. The image quality bar keeps rising, and the only way to keep up with it is to keep iterating equipment. Reluctantly, and more cautiously, but still buying.

The hobbyist looks towards their hobby as the thing that keeps them happy during depressing times. Moreover, the thing I keep trying to point out to people is that the current recession is highly regional and highly targeted. If you assemble cars or build homes, you’re likely out of work. Professionals, who comprise a fair portion of that photography hobbyist market, are the least likely to be out of work right now. That’s not to say they too aren’t more cautious in what they buy, but they, too, are still buying if they see the quality and features they desire. Maybe their budget this year is only US$2000 instead of US$3000, but that simply means that they don’t three lenses, they buy two instead.

I don’t see this changing any time soon. There’s no miracle recovery around the corner, though we’ve probably bottomed out. Nikon seems to still be keeping the lid on production. So we’ll probably continue to see shortages of popular items.

Bottom line: three (possibly four) body introductions still coming this year, and at least six lens introductions are due as well. Plus you’ll still have a hard time getting popular items as stock levels won’t be high.