Luckily, to avoid pissing off any one faction on the Internet too much, Mike is able to recommend each of the cameras in one way or another. He says the Sony A900 wins for “the ultimate in image quality,” although he says that it’s not perfect for every kind of photography.

But between its staggering resolution and very good dynamic range, its willing response to the Exposure and Recovery sliders, and its more “photographic” image quality and lack of digital artifacts—and despite its less-than-accurate color—it’s the IQ emperor for now, among these four (i.e., the three under discussion and the D3).

But he also mentions that if you don’t need the A900′s whopping megapixel count, then it shouldn’t really be in the running.

Up next is the “most recommendable” camera, which he says is the Nikon D700.

Given its sensible size compared to the D3, robust build, fast autofocus, overall responsiveness, superior ergonomics, unmatched high-ISO performance, and perfectly sensible file size, it’s going to be the most bang for the buck for more photographers than either of the others. The Nikon is flat-out a better camera than the Canon, a point exemplified by its clearly superior autofocus performance…. my feeling is that it would help more photographers take better pictures in more situations than either of the other two.

That leaves the Canon 5D Mark II as the “best compromise” between the A900 and D700. The 5DMkII doesn’t have the almost-ridiculous resolution and detail of the A900, but it’s up there. It also doesn’t have the high ISO noise performance of the D700, but it’s good. And, while it isn’t as good as the two leaders in those categories (in this comparison) it’s overall much better balanced:

And here’s the thing: [the 5D Mark II] has much more resolution than the Nikon, and much better high-ISO capability than the Sony. So its win over the Nikon where resolution is concerned is bigger than the margin by which it loses to the Sony in the same department, and its win over the Sony in high-ISO performance is much more decisive than the margin by which it loses to the Nikon on that score.

So if you giving each camera a score in both image quality/detail and high ISO capabilities, the 5D Mark II wouldn’t win either of those categories, but if you add them up to give you a total overall score, it would win. He makes sure to point out that he’s ignoring the strong video capabilities of the Canon 5D Mark II, so if you have a use for HD video in your DSLR, this becomes a much easier decision to make.

Then come the image quality issues with the 5D Mark II, which include some unusual chromatic aberration results that I haven’t seen mentioned in other reviews so far:

It’s been eight or 10 years since “purple fringing” (also called “CA,” not entirely accurately) first heaved into our collective consciousness as a peculiarly digital anomaly, and since then, other artifacts have been dealt with in their turn. I don’t see much in the way of purple fringing at all from the 5D Mark II, but there’s what Carl Weese calls “blue replacement,” by which narrow objects imaged against a brighter background change from their own color into a darkish pastel hue. You see it most often in twigs and telephone lines. The 5D Mark II isn’t particularly bad, but it shows up a lot more than it does from the D700. And its susceptibility to blue replacement makes it a candidate for a lovely lens aberration that I’d never actually seen before in a picture I’ve taken myself—longitudinal chromatic aberration (LoCA), which shifts objects in front of the plane of best focus to magenta and those in back of the plane to green.

There’s a sample photo from the 5DMkII showing all sorts of ugly purple and green branches, which makes me feel a little bit ill inside. I’ll try not to lose my lunch all over your shiny new cameras.

Mike also feels that Canon’s noise is blotchier than other cameras, and says that the highlight clipping is harsher and “less fixable” on the 5DMkII than on other recent cameras, and describes it as the kind of thing we would have seen a few years back. And, of course, the much-discussed black dot problem to the right of blown highlights. Mike somehow manages not to turn into a raving photography forum inhabitant with his reasonable downplaying of the black dot issue:

This doesn’t bother me at all—you’d never see it in prints and you probably wouldn’t notice it if it were visible—but hey, I’m just a reporter, I gotta report what I see.

I think we can be reasonably certain that Canon will fix this in a future firmware update.

Overall, a very interesting comparison between three excellent cameras, and I recommend everyone go visit the site and read the full review.

• It’s a piece of shit.
• Despite its fancy specs, this is for all intents and purposes a perfect throwback to the days when even good zooms couldn’t aspire to the performance of ordinary garden-variety primes. Its performance is for all the world like an early-’80s mid-level zoom—smack dab in the middle of the era in which zooms earned—and deserved—their still-lingering bad reputation.
• It has flagrant amounts of linear distortion not only at its wide setting but well into the middle range, and apparent perspective distortion even near the middle of the frame(!).
• The D700 could hardly focus the thing—I got more out-of-focus shots than I have with any AF lens in years
• Its sharpness is lackluster. At 120mm, I don’t think the thing gets sharp. At least, not without stopping down further than I was able to.
• The deterioration in performance toward the corners is often marked—and not just at the extreme corners, either.
• Color transmission borders on sucky (I know this from having recently used the 24–70mm f/2.8 on the D3).
• This is a very inexpensive lens that is not worth half of what it costs.
• If you innocently purchased one of these and are not lucky enough to be using it on a DX sensor, try to get your money back if you possibly can. Otherwise, stop down and avoid the extremes of the zoom range, even though they’re probably why you bought the thing in the first place.
• The VR doesn’t even work very well. It works, but it’s the least effective image stabilizing I’ve yet experienced.

So, there you go. Avoid the lens like something super scary that you should run away from, and be happy that Mike has renewed his interest in lens quality!

First, the specs. The Nikon D3x is an upgrade to the Nikon D3, with the biggest difference being the resolution being upped from 12 megapixel full-frame on the D3 to 24 megapixel full-frame on the D3x. Then there are some odd areas where the D3x has poorer specs than the D3:

• Burst shooting speed drops from 11 fps to 7 fps
• The D3′s ISO range was 200-6400, plus HI1 and HI2. The D3x gives you 100-1600, plus HI1 and HI2, which surely won’t be as “hi” as the D3′s famous boosted ISO settings

And then the biggie, which is why everyone’s complaining: the price. The D3x will have a list price of $8,000 — $3,000 more than the D3. And that’s three times the list price of the 21 megapixel Canon 5D Mark II ($2700 retail price.) I’m not sure who the target audience is that Nikon thinks will spend that kind of money on more pixels — maybe medium format photographers looking for something different? Here are a few samples of other people around the net wondering about Nikon’s pricing strategy for the D3x.

Thom Hogan writes

We can’t talk about the D3x without talking about the D3 and pricing. D3 prices have been collapsing for some time. That’s despite the fact that Nikon has not lowered the price to dealers (at least here in the US; not 100% sure about the rest of the world). That’s a sign of very weak demand, as in at least one advertised price I could find, the dealer was selling below what they paid for the product. Now we get a camera that is really only different in the sensor (and FX sensors cost basically the same to manufacturer, no matter what the pixel count on them [yes, there's probably a modest yield difference, but not enough to justify much of a price change]), yet we have a substantive price increase. Anyone else see the problem with this picture? Nikon’s asking us to pay more for the equivalent. I say equivalent because you can look at it this way: you can buy the same camera with either high ISO and dynamic range improvements, or you can have it with more pixels. For some reason, more pixels costs US$3000. Really?

[...]

Nikon has a big problem with the D3x, I think. It’s last to the market (FX, high resolution), with everything riding solely on the sensor. And they’re asking a huge price for it. At US$4999 the risk of failure wouldn’t have been very large. At its US$7999 price, it really needs to perform beyond expectations for it to shore up the top side of Nikon’s lineup. On the plus side, the pixel-deprived Nikon shooters will initially appreciate the part of the camera that addresses that issue, but I wonder whether it’s enough to make the D3x a winning product.

Ken Rockwell:

Nikon wants eight grand for this $5,500 camera, based solely on image quality, however the D3X’ image quality ought to be about the same as (maybe worse than) the $2,700 Canon 5D Mark II. The D3X ergonomics are far superior to Canon, but the D3 has the same ergonomics as the D3X, but for half the price and with twice the frame rate and four times the ISO of the D3X.

Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape:

It seems to me that at a $3000 premium over the otherwise almost identical D3, and at some $5000 more than the Canon 5D MKII and Sony A900, the pricing of the Nikon (especially in our current crisis economy) is simply out to lunch. A $1,000 premium I could have understood. Maybe even, $1,500. But with only more megapixels on offer I simply find the D3x to be financially out of tune with the realities of today’s marketplace.

Good luck, Nikon! Nobody seems to happy with this one so far…

The usual bunch of features, 3″ high resolution LCD, live view, UDMA flash card support, HDMI output, etc. The viewfinder sounds especially nice and large compared to most other DSLRs.

And, right on time, DPReview has a hands-on preview of the D700. There’s not a whole lot of commentary, but if you want to see every menu on the camera and a whole lot of glamour shots, it’s worth a look.

• A “Vignette Control” item has been added to the “Shooting Menu”.
• A focus point brightness item has been added to the “a6: Focus point illumination” setting in the “Autofocus” category in the “Custom Settings”.
• The “Highlights” playback display option has been moved from “Display mode > Basic photo info > Highlights” in the playback menu to “Display Mode > Detailed photo info > Highlights”.
• When shutter speed and/or aperture are locked when shooting in LiveView mode, using the “L” (command lock) button, an “L” icon is now displayed in the camera monitor.
• The size and color of “Demo” displayed in the monitor with playback, when “No memory card?” in the “Custom Settings” is set to “Enable Release”, have been modified.
• The range of settings available for “ISO sensitivity settings > ISO sensitivity auto control > Minimum shutter speed” in the Shooting Menu has been increased from 1/250th – 1s to 1/4000s – 1s.
• When a compatible Speedlight or Wireless Speedlight Commander is used, the AF assist illuminator now lights regardless of focal length.
• When shooting in hand-held LiveView mode and the frame is magnified prior to autofocusing, operation has been modified so that display returns to the magnified display rather than full-frame display.
• Improved white balance calculation for shutter speeds around 1/4 sec in P and A modes.
• When attempting to crop images at an aspect ratio of 4:3 using the “Trim” option in the “Retouch” menu, the cropped image did not have an accurate 4:3 aspect ratio. Oops. Glad to hear that it really does what it claims to do now.

There you go. Like the Nikon site says, be sure to upgrade both the A and B firmwares to 1.10, or else “proper operation of your D3 is not guaranteed.” Scary!

The natural assumption is that a 24 megapixel Nikon D3X will be released in the near future, and use a similar firmware base, which would explain how those strings wound up in the D3 firmware. Another theory is that the 24 megapixel sensor has been put into D3 bodies for testing purposes, and those testers are using the stock Nikon D3 firmware. I would think you could just build a special firmware for those test cameras in that case, and not leak the D3X info in the D3′s firmware. Who knows.

Definitely far from definite, but it’s a quasi-official — if unintended — mention of a Nikon D3X, so it seems worth mentioning.

UPDATE, December 1, 2008: And today, more than half a year later, Nikon officially announced the D3x, although they somehow claim that it’s 24.5 megapixels, when really you have to round up to get to 24.4. That extra 0.1 megapixel will surely make all the difference in sales.

It sounds remarkably similar to the Nikon D40X. And when I say “remarkably,” I mean “holy crap that’s the same camera resurrected from the camera graveyard for a cheesy sequel!” It has the same body, same sensor and resolution, same specifications, and so on. So, what are the differences? Let’s list them.

1. An anti-dust system that has both sensor shake and a special airflow design that’s designed to keep dust away from the sensor in the first place.
2. Active D-Lighting (which is becoming popular, but I’m still not convinced that it gives you anything that you wouldn’t get with Photoshopping your RAW files…)
3. Stop motion recording mode. Not exactly groundbreaking, and not anything that you wouldn’t rather do on the computer where you’d get more control over the video creation options.
4. The kit lens is now an anti-shake 18-55mm VR Nikon lens.

So, there you have it. It sounds like a pretty minor upgrade, if you ask me. Of course, if I’ve missed some huge nugget of awesomeness in the specs somewhere, please let me know in the comments. Maybe the D60 actually spits gold nuggets out of the memory card slot on demand. That could be pretty cool…

This gives us a very valuable and rare kind of review, which is able to focus on ergonomics and usability comparisons. I’d recommend visiting LL and reading the whole thing. But if you want my summary, I’ll do that as well.

The feature comparison starts with mirror lock-up, criticizing Canon for not making it easily available, and criticizing Nikon for not letting you use the self-timer and mirror lock-up at the same time. Personally, that’s not a big issue for me.

But Michael’s second issue has long been my main complaint with Canon and one of the things that Nikon does well: auto ISO. Some recent Canons do have this, but it’s been a long time coming, and still isn’t as flexible as what Nikon has provided for years. Michael writes:

The way Nikon implements it is to allow the user to set the lowest ISO that he or she wishes to use, and also the highest. The lowest shutter speed for the camera to automatically use also may be preset.

From then on the camera, whether set to Aperture Priority, Manual, or full Program mode,the camera will adjust the exposure parameters as usual, but, when the light level falls so low that the camera’s minimum lens aperture is reached, and the shutter speed is as low as you have set it to go, the camera will then automatically increase the ISO as much as needed to fall within these parameters. The ISO being set is always visible on the top LCD as well as in the viewfinder.

He also takes the opportunity to briefly pixel peep and comment on the stunning high ISO performance of the Nikon D3, which is very drool-worthy if you ask me.

And then there’s the increasingly dreaded autofocus mode selector on the D3, which people seem to keep accidentally bumping, often switching the camera from autofocus to manual focus without meaning to. Michael reports that this has happened to him often as well (“at least a couple of times a day.”)

A few other differences between them, such as Nikon DSLRs showing you the number of photos remaining on the inserted memory card even when the camera is turned off, which Canon doesn’t do. And the high resolution LCD screen on the D3 and D300, which he describes as a useful improvement.

He prefers the Nikon method of implementing dual memory card slots, since both are CF; current Camera 1-series cameras have two slots, but one is SD, which complicates things for professional photographers.

He gives thumbs down to the lack of anti-dust vibration in the Nikon D3, but does mention that he hasn’t accumulated any dust at all after shooting 1,500 frames with it.

And in the end — after other comparisons which I’m skipping over — he’s surprised by how many advantages the new Nikon cameras have over Canon:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but after being away from Nikon for the better part of a decade and having been immersed in the Canon gestalt since then, I was frankly surprised at the extent to which current Nikon cameras offer feature and function advantages over Canon. While some of the ones mentioned above may not be relevant to any one photographer’s needs, there are bound to be several which can be real productivity aids, if not just downright fun to have and use.

I do have to say I’m pretty surprised at the importance he places on buying new cameras, however, especially considering that the site often seems to be more focused on good photography than random technological qubbles:

No pro is going to show up on a shoot with gear that’s two generations behind the competition, and few except the most skint amateurs are happy to sit on the sidelines while better tools become available.

I don’t really buy that. I don’t know about what a pro is going to do, because that’s not my world, but I’m perfectly happy with my now-aging Digital Rebel XT, even though I could afford to sell it and buy a newer model. And I’m sure there are tons of great photographers taking tons of great pictures with cheap old cameras.

We now have a bit of a sea change happening. Nikon has flexed its considerable muscle and with the D3 produced a camera that sends a clear challenge to Canon’s nearly decade-long dominance of the digital arena. The D300, though in many ways simply a logical progression from the D200, is a much better camera than its predecessor, and along with its superior sensor offers the pro and advanced amateur a set of features and functionality that is unmatched at the moment in Canon’s line up.

For its part the full-frame Nikon D3 is a direct challenge to Canon’s 1 Series, which has dominated the pro marketplace now for more than half a decade. The 1D MKIII is right in the D3′s bore sight, and the D3 matches it or surpasses it in IQ, sensitivity, and resolution.

Canon’s flagship the 1DsMKIII certainly is the currently king of the hill in terms of resolution, but if Nikon were to put a full frame chip with the D300′s pixel density into a D3 chassis they’d have a 24MP – 29MP camera that would likely satisfy a great many Nikonistas who have been lusting after a full frame pro camera to match Canon’s lead in resolution. If you were Nikon, wouldn’t you build one?

The next couple of years should be very interesting.

Hooray for interesting digital camera developments! It’s pretty amazing to think of all of the advances that have happened in just the last 10 years; can anyone imagine what we’ll have in just 10 more? Maybe intelligent robotic camera dogs that wander around, peeing on fire hydrants and taking pictures on their own, and transmitting those photos to our own personal satellites to avoid draconian privacy invasions by the government? Ah, the future…

Interestingly, they state that the camera is fast to power on and be ready for shooting, but then state that the speed is 0.9 seconds, which sounds extremely slow to me for a DSLR:

The camera is very quick to switch on and take photos, from off, to taking a photo in 0.9 seconds.

Maybe that includes the time to take the photo itself, including auto focus, metering, and all that? They don’t specify, but 0.9 seconds just to turn on a digital SLR is extremely slow, if you ask me. You probably didn’t ask me, though, so I’ll just ignore that point and continue.

Most people seem to think that Nikon is one of the best DSLR manufacturers when it comes to ergonomics, but this review does have some negative comments about the D40x in that area:

The layout of buttons and controls could be better, or rather, there seems to be a limited number of buttons, and quick access to the most commonly used options and features is sometimes difficult as most options seem hidden in menus. There is one function button that can be customised, for example, so you can set ISO, however, if you also want quick access to White Balance, then you will need to use the back screen or menu system. It also seems a shame that the Info button can’t be customised, as it seems to serve little purpose.

That said, he describes the camera as solidly built and easy to hold despite the smaller-than-average size.

There’s an ISO noise comparison between the Nikon D40x, the Olympus E-510, and the Canon 400D (the Digital Rebel XTi), all 10 megapixel cameras. The white balance is different between the three cameras, which makes it a little odd to compare for noise (e.g., something that’s a strong blue color in the E-510 images is white in the D40x images, and a purplish blue in the 400D images, meaning that blue channel noise will be tougher to see in the blue cast images than in the D40x images.)

The reviewer does like the noise performance:

Noise from the Nikon D40x is very low, lower than the Olympus E-510, and even slightly lower than the Canon EOS 400D, the Nikon also provides a full ISO range from ISO100 to ISO3200 – with the highest setting usable in some situations. Detail also remains quite good upto ISO800. At ISO1600 and ISO3200 detail is reduced, and there does seem to be some reduction in colour saturation, especially as ISO3200.

The main negatives that the review finds were the aforementioned ergonomic issues, the fact that not all Nikon lenses are supported due to the lack of a focus motor, and the confusing lack of exposure compensation bracketing (which is a pretty glaring omission of what is normally a standard digital camera feature.)

Personally, I’m using automatic exposure bracketing for quick HDR image acquisition (more in a future post, perhaps) and would be surprised to buy a digital SLR camera only to discover that it was missing a pretty basic feature like that. So, for me, the Nikon D40x isn’t the right camera to buy. For you, that’s your call.

Nikon D60

First is the Nikon D60. The rumors say it’ll be arriving in spring of 2008. These rumors supposedly come from someone who leaked the news about the Nikon D3 before the official announcement, and so are slightly more believable than what some random person with no credibility posts on the Internet.

These rumors are being paired up with news that the Nikon D40x is being discontinued, and the theory is the D60 (or whatever it’ll wind up being called) would be the replacement for the D40x.

Canon 450D

Canon is scheduled to make some big announcements in their DSLR line in January, and this rumor of a Canon 450D (which would be a successor to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi) fit with that.

According to these rumors, it would have a 10.1 megapixel sensor (not full frame), the Canon DIGIC III processor, offer 14-bit RAW images, have a 2.5″ LCD display with live view, better autofocus, support for sRAW, a dust removal system, and burst mode up to 5 fps.

The rumored date for the rumored camera is January 24th (no big surprise what with PMA at that point.)

Pentax K200D

This one looks like the most trustworthy rumor of the bunch, see all the photos over at Photography Bay. That’s an insane amount of image chopping if it’s fake.

The rumored specs — which didn’t come attached to the photos, so they might be a little more suspect — are that the K200D will have a 10 megapixel Sony image sensor, 3 fps burst mode (a maximum of 10 shots in RAW, no limit with JPEGs), 11-point auto focus, and a larger LCD than the K100D (size unspecified in the rumors I could find.)

Big heaping salt blocks should be used with any of this news, but I’m passing it along because what kind of irresponsible web journalist would I be if I didn’t? Not a very good one, I can promise you that.