The Nikon D400 made a sensational appearance on a Chinese web site. There, we find a description of the feature set. Despite the translation difficulties there are a few interesting items (that is, if they are real data):
- Sensor: 24.4 MP CMOS
- Rear LCD screen: Touchscreen
- Exposure adjust by 1/3 or 1/2 or 1EV
- Sensitivity: ISO 200-3200
- Memory slots: Compact Flash AND SD card
- Image formats: Raw, JPG and TIFF
- Data interface: USB 2.0
Even if this is a very partial description, it contains enough surprises to be worth mentionning. The presence of a touch-screen would really be a superb improvement (already seen on compact Point-and-Shot cameras but never before on SLRs). The arrival of SD cards on this range of SLR cameras cannot be a complete surprise knowing the trend already clear for smaller cameras. However, having a TIFF file format available is a major surprise that could lead to a big redefinition of what is used for picture output. Depending on how it is used, it could be a move to a standardized RAW format (instead of DNG) or a weird addition.
Additional note: The arrival of a dual slot memory support is well supported by the observation of the Nikon D700 body. You can easily notice that the body already has a space free for such a dual slot possibility.
Anyway, we will have to understand if this is reality or a publicity scam from a Chinese web site (in which case it works well. Everybody interested in the Nikon D400 is reading this).
Comments
5 responses to “Chinese Nikon D400”
Obviously, everybody will notice that nothing is said about the sensor size/format. But, seeing 24 MP and a reuse of the Nikon D700 body, I’d think this is going to be the low-cost Full Frame many people were expecting.
What do you think?
The flagship DX model should have dual CF slots like its FX counterparts.
They don’t need another FX model … they do however, need to upgrade the DX flagship.
Mark, what you describe has a very very low probability.
The D300s (DX) needs a replacement for sure. It would be the Nikon D400. But dual CF is less and less probable seeing how the market is moving toward SD cards. A dual SD+CF solution would be much much more adequate for Nikon.
Now, this being done, Nikon still needs to decide what to do after the D700 (FX model, but not a flagship yet) and there is clearly some space for a D800. Apparently, it would be using a much higher resolution sensor (thanks to Sony’s effort to reduce pixel-cell size and Nikon’s legendary noise management algorithms).