Is the announcement of Nikon D800 imminent? Why the announcement of D800 before D4?

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Could this be the new Nikon D800 that is going to be announced very soon ? Next week perhaps?

The Nikon D700 is 3 years old. It is a direct competition to Canon’s 5D II, which has a superb video function. Yet, Nikon has taken a while to fight back with an update model. In the past, Nikon announced their flag ship FX camera first before introducing the littler brother version of it. Similar to the announcement of Nikon D3 which was dated back August, 2007, 11 months later in July 2008, Nikon introduces the trim down version of D3 – D700 which used the same 12.1 MP CMOS sensor. This is obviously a strategic move so the introduction of D700 will not jeopardise the sale of their flagship D3.

Could this be the Nikon D800?

So what has changed in the house of Nikon to decide to announce the D800 before the D4?

One observation is that this could mean the D800 will be of a different specification to the D4. Nikon has decided to increase the sensor resolution on the D800 to 36MP which is 3 times more than the current D700. The pixel density has obviously increased and will very much affect the noise performance. You will notice the D800 has the same ISO sensitivity as the D700 which is up to 6400 (extendable to 25600). Compare to the Nikon D3s which is up to 12800 (extendable to 102400), the D800 no longer matches the ISO performance of the Nikon’s flagship series. Unlike how the Nikon D700 performed similar to the D3.

Ergonomic wise, the D800 has only received small alteration with the most significant of the new video function buttons being added. This probably shows Nikon is very confident in their ergonomic design of their D700.

The D800 adds HD video function 1080p/30 which loyal Nikon users have missed for over 3 years when Canon introduced their 5D II two months later after the announcement of D700 back in September 2008.

Nikon no longer need to trim down the D800 to compare with their flagship series, so they are able to offer 100% VF coverage and dual slots to the D800.

As to the specification of Nikon D4, I would guess it will not follow the footsteps of the D800, but to have a resolution of around 18-21MP, continuing to have an outstanding ISO performance.

Will you be upgrading your D700 to D800 ? leave us a comment below.

Here is the speculation on the Nikon D800 specifications:

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