The angst of the Nikon community has always been a bit on the paranoid side of reality, but lately it's gotten a bit out of hand. The long wait for another new Nikon DSLR is raising the anxiety levels of the faithful to new heights, to the point where the native drums are beating the "switch me gonna, me gonna switch" pattern at increasing volumes. (You have to admit, it's got an almost hypnotic rhythm to it: duh-duh-dunna, duh-dunna-duh, duh-duh-dunna, duh-dunna-duh...)
But is reality anywhere near the frenetic drumming? Let's take a look. I'm going to restrict myself to just Canon and Nikon here, as these are the two bully players in the DSLR market. Yes, there's some nibbling happening at the low-end by mirrorless, but we've yet to see all the players there, so it's too early to comment. So, in the Big DSLR Race between The Two:
- Low-end consumer. The winner here would have to be the low end Kiss in the Canon lineup. This is the category where Nikon seems to have lost all reason. They've simply taken a D40x and iterated almost nothing meaningful on it for two more generations (D60, D3000). Nikon's product feels outdated, out-of-place, underspecified, and unremarkable compared to the competition. This is a trend that has been continuing for some time. The T1i started to move the bar significantly in Canon's direction.
- Middle consumer. The winner here would have to be the Canon T2i. Nikon's D5000 is a bit idiosyncratic. It tries a little too hard to be different than both the D3000 and the D90, creating a bit of buying confusion in the lineup. The Canon, on the other hand, is a well-specified and thought out model that has the kitchen sink built in, just like the bigger brothers.
- High consumer. A tough call. There are things to like on both the 50D and D90, but both are a little long in the tooth and need updating. Based upon sales figures and customer satisfaction, I'd have to guess that the D90 won the race up to this point. Still, a close race that will be renewed shortly.
- Prosumer. An even tougher call. The Canon 7D has some big marketing check boxes ticked off that the Nikon D300s doesn't: more pixels, better video. Up until the appearance of the 7D, Nikon was winning this category hands down. But since Canon's update cycles are offset from Nikon's, Canon has the advantage for the coming year. Next year's D400 needs to leapfrog ahead again.
- High Prosumer. The companies are running two different races here. Canon has clearly won the high megapixel, video-enabled race with the 5DII. But the Nikon D700 has clearly won the high build quality, high ISO race. Both products sell well, but for different reasons and to different audiences.
- Speed Pro. The Canon 1DIV did not dislodge the D3, especially given Nikon's D3s tweaks. There's less difference than before, but I'd judge the D3s the better choice here--it's simply a remarkable camera that's holding it's own. Too bad that Nikon hasn't fleshed out the video side more, though, as that remains one area in which Canon stays ahead.
- Pixel Pro. The Nikon D3x still holds reign here, though we should find out about Canon's next generation 1Ds by Photokina.
When you look at it in these terms, the high end of Nikon is holding up pretty well. The D3s and D3x continue to sit atop the pro still camera market. Even those in the market for a D300 or D700 level of camera are mostly only displeased with the lack of fully fleshed video capability. Those with the Resolution Virus still hear the siren call of "more megapixels," but Nikon certainly will take steps forward there in the next generation. Note that the D300s, D700, and D3s would all be due for a new version between now and the end of summer 2011. Assuming Nikon doesn't make any fundamental mistakes in those updates, I'd judge Nikon's high-end rolling stock to be and stay "competitive."
As I noted, the D90 is due for its update. It will be one of the next cameras announced by Nikon. So the jury is out on the high consumer race until we meet all the players.
To me, Nikon has two big liabilities in the DSLR game right now: the video isn't yet up to competitive snuff, and the low end of the consumer line is weak and misguided. That's where Nikon is losing sales at the moment. And it's never really recovered the momentum of the D40/D50 in this space, in my opinion. I have an idea of how Nikon thinks they might try to shake up this space after my talk with them in Japan. And I support the basic premise. But the devil is in the details. Consumer cameras have always seemed to confuse Nikon engineering. Nikon's history is filled with consumer camera corpses. Nikkormats, Nikkorexes, E's, G's, and many more are just one visible sign of Nikon's various attempts, the best of which was only successful for fairly short periods of time. Nikon has also conducted "user experiments" in the consumer space. The N70's funky "sliced LCD" comes to mind, as does the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde aspect of the D3000's latest Scene modes versus Guided Scene modes. None of these experiments have ever stuck around in the lineup. None.
Thus, to me the biggest issue for Nikon moving forward is not more megapixels or better video or any of the chants the Internet chorus seems to know, but rather: when will Nikon figure out how to make a low end DSLR that resonates and drives the future of low end DSLRs? That's where we stand. On a junkyard of discarded and forgotten Nikon consumer bodies, working with our state-of-the-art Nikon pro ones.