Nikon D4 Announcement January 5, 2012.

Nikon tried to keep its announcement under wraps, but this one slithered out almost a week or two before the actual announcement. So when the Nikon D4 announcement came out yesterday, it was a kind of a dénouement, in comparison to the D3 announcement back in 2007 where the D3 just kind of blew everyone away. Nikon in 2007 didn't really have a full-frame camera and they had made no indication that they were moving in that direction, so the D3 being full-frame just made everyone sit up and take notice.



However this D4 has the following specifications:

16.2 Megapixel Sensor

51 AF points

11 fps Continuous shooting mode

ISO range 100-12,800, expandable up to 50 and 204,800

Autofocus system: 9 cross-type sensors (operational up to f/8)

AF detection range will go down to EV-2.0 (the D3s went to EV -1)

Hybrid Viewfinder

Compatible with the new Nikon WT-5 wireless transmitter

Integrated Ethernet in the camera

Improved video mode, 1080p/30/25/24 and 720p/60/30/25/24 similar to the Nikon D800, Uncompressed video out through the HDMI port

Ability to assign the two buttons on the front of the camera to smooth aperture control during video recording

CF + XQD memory card slots

Check out the official Nikon Specifications on Nikon's D4.

Personally, I do like the D4, but unfortunately with a price tag of $6300.00 MSRP, it's completely out of my price range. With my interest in wildlife photography, I would prefer the replacement for my D300s (hopefully a D400). At around the 10,000 shot range, you start to need to figure out when you are going to relegate the camera to a backup role. I'm up at about 3,800 shots.

I'm not interested at this point at a full-frame camera. However, I do find that the landscape portion of my business is going to require an upgrade to a FX camera. But for wildlife, DX is the best solution at this time.