One nice thing about being completely offline for a long period of time is that you don't get caught up in the day-to-day discussions that tend to deep end in amazingly small details that aren't necessarily important. I've known about most of the D7000 details for quite some time, but have kept quiet on them until after the official announcement. Better still, during the weeks leading up to the announcement when the buzz and hype were the highest, I was in remote Africa just photographing. My mind is pretty clear at the moment in regards to product performance and product line differentiation. Thus, I think I can speak about Nikon's new offerings in a relatively detached way that isn't caught up in the usual Internet chatter.
I'll just state up front that I think that the D7000 is the most important camera Nikon has introduced for consumers since the D70 (and perhaps the D700 if you consider it a "consumer" camera; it's certainly a camera that a lot of consumers purchase). The 7 numbers have been important to Nikon in the digital generation. The D70 was what got them significant consumer momentum. The D700 stole the full frame momentum from other companies. The D7000 will…well, it should turn out to be right in the sweet spot of where the advanced amateur wants to be. The only thing the D7000 doesn't have that the target audience might (think they) want is full frame.
In case you missed the announcement details, the D7000 is a 16mp DX camera, 6 fps, 100% viewfinder, more metal and sealed than the D90, and has a number of features previously found only on the pro bodies (exposure measuring with older manual focus lenses, for instance). The D7000 also gets 39-point autofocus, double the pixels in the metering sensor, twin SD card slots, 1080P/24 video, and a new shutter tested to 150k activations, amongst other things. The D7000 is not the D90 replacement according to Nikon, but will slot in between the D90 and D300s in the lineup. That last is a wee bit of marketing chicanery: Nikon has a sufficient inventory of D90's still and has continued to make them as the D7000 started production. Still, I have no doubt that the D90 will be out of the lineup within a year, probably less. The D90 will likely be featured heavily in those weekly deals that Nikon does pre-Christmas, and once production shuts down and those cameras are gone, the D90 will be history.
As with the D3100, Nikon is slowly distancing itself more from off-the-shelf Sony sensors. And as with the D3100, the sensor specs are a little curious. Nikon seems to have decided that some slightly smaller variant of DX is correct, but I'm not sure what's motivating the very slight loss of real estate (e.g. 1.55x versus 1.52x). None of that is important, though. The only thing that is important is how the new DX sensors perform versus the competition. From the sample images I've seen so far, I'd say the image quality is promising. But short of actually putting the cameras through fairly comprehensive testing, it's unclear where the weak points are. (All sensors have weak points, some weaker than others.) I'll leave the image quality discussion until later, when I've had a chance to use the cameras in the field.
The 16mp decision is a good one, I think. It's not going to make a dramatic difference to those currently using 12mp DX, as the bump in pixels is slightly under the threshold where most people can see a difference (even at 100% view). But in terms of compromise between pixels for cropping or printing large versus lens performance versus noise and dynamic range, I think 16mp is probably a better choice than Canon's recent 18mp choice (on an even slightly smaller sensor: 1.6x). It does seem a little strange to me to be putting effort into both 14mp and 16mp sensors, though. I don't get the point of doing two sensor designs so close in spec, but with clearly different sensels. There can't be a pricing difference (other than the extra cost to design two sensors). There isn't likely to be a lot of performance difference. The only thing I can think of is that there are significant yield differences, probably due to the on-sensor electronics (the D7000 sensor is 14-bit and faster frame rate, the D3100 is 12-bit and slower frame rate). Still, you could do two variants of a 16mp sensor easier than a 14mp and 16mp sensor. Sometimes I think the Japanese get too caught up in the old HiFi product model: many small feature differences designed for easier upsell. Features are not necessarily functions. Function differences are easier to upsell than feature differences. And the D7000 has plenty of function differences.
Nikon's DSLR lineup is now decidedly old/new. The D3100, D7000, D3x, and D3s are definitely pushing state of the art and are (mostly) very "current" in capabilities and performance. The D5000, D300s, and D700 are now looking a bit dowdy. It seems clear to me that the D5100 will take the D3100 sensor to update the tweener camera. Given Nikon's design propensities, the D5100 will likely stay a bit oddball, with a few features of its own (positionable LCD) while stealing from its neighboring models (sensor from D3100, a few features from the D7000). The D700 has a couple of ways it can go, but the most likely to me still seems to be to grab the D3s sensor and capabilities. Nothing wrong with the D3s and 12mp, though perhaps Nikon will move that sensor design up to 16mp, too (well, okay, the video needs work, too). That leaves the D300s replacement (D400) as the big question mark. Nikon has given themselves a bit of design room (18mp, 8+fps, powered grip, etc.), but not much. A D400 needs more than the obvious to take a slot between the D7000 and the D700 replacement, as the D7000 picked up a number of things (such as working with non-CPU lenses) that were previously the domain of the Dxxx bodies. But Nikon needs something between the D7000 and D700 replacement, as the price gap would be too big, otherwise. So we all wait to see what the D4 and D400 will bring to the table.
Oh, the other announcements? Coolpix P7000, which is basically a Canon G11 with a longer focal length zoom and a Nikon nameplate. Okay, that's a bit harsh, but it seems clear that Nikon looked at the G9, G10, and G11 and finally realized why Canon was selling cameras and they weren't. Unfortunately for Nikon Canon wasn't sitting still (G12 just announced) and Panasonic has made a very nice update and produced the LX-5. Something tells me that when I redo my compact test (previously P6000, G11, LX-3) the results will be about the same.
Nikon also introduced the long-expected 35mm f/1.4G (which takes it off the Waiting for Nikon list) and the minor update to the 200mm f/2G to give it the latest VR system. Rounding out Nikon's mid-September announcements was the SB-700, which is the to the SB-600 what the SB-900 was to the SB-800. Better user controls, more thermal protection annoyance ;~).