Can't see it really if you want a better quality DX body wouldn't you get an FX body. IMHO dx or cropped sensors were nothing more than available technology at the time and I'm sure that Canon & Nikon plus all really wish they'd never been invented. It's fragmented development and created two product lines. Ask yourself as the CEO of a manufacturer do you want to supply dx lenses and bodies that deliver quality equal to the full frame equivalent. If I were holding the purse strings I'd offer a dx line aimed solely at the entry market with a range that offers superb value for money with good quality. For those that love photography whether for pleasure or business support the full frame line. If you used a 35mm slr would you be having this discussion regarding lesser formats, I think not. Dx and FX is no different to DVD or bluray one came along first but won't give you the quality of bluray and is only being sold whilst the market transitions to the better quality variant.
Steve,
For the most part I agree with you that if you have DX and you want more, it makes sense to upgrade to FX, especially since most of your lenses probably already work on FX. The one special application where I'm not sure it makes quite as much sense is wild bird photography, especially
small birds, where most of us already struggle to fill the DX frame with a bird. I already crop most of my bird photos from my DX body. With an FX body I will have to crop even more to get the same image. So why not use DX and let the camera crop for you? With a crop sensor, file size can be smaller, giving faster fps and less "wasted" image. It seems to me they just need to optimize the pixel density on the DX sensor and the processor to maximize the quality of the cropped image. I presume Nikon is trying to design their DX sensors to to the job. That's why I still want a D400. But for most other applications, DX lenses and bodies would never "deliver quality equal to full frame."
I think you're right that the first dSLR's had APS-C sensors simply because they were not ready to give us a full frame sensor at the time, and now we have this DX/FX split, and the "pro" DX line is in doubt. It really looks to me like APS-C is going to move more and more toward smaller mirrorless or rangefinder-sized cameras. I personally really like that trend. I think APS-C is a great format, and worthy to have a place in the pro/high end market. Full frame has become like medium format. Not every serious amateur or professional needs the huge files and poster-sized prints that a D800 can deliver. Small APS-C cameras are already eating into DX SLR sales. So as you said, maybe DX SLR bodies will finally be strictly an "entry level" stepping stone to full frame. I can imagine someday I will sell my heavy FX telephoto lenses and invest in a smaller APS-C system for birds. I think RJM said in another post: pro telephoto lenses designed specifically for APS-C would not have to be big heavy super fast f/2.8 things; they could be much smaller with f/4 or f/5.6 while still matching or exceeding what the big heavy FX telephotos do
on DX sensors.
But that super-cool lightweight range of small professional APS-C telephoto lenses isn't out there yet, so I hope Nikon supports "pro DX" SLR's a little longer and gives us the D400!
For now, Pasquier is probably right. With APS-C shifting toward the compact/mirrorless market, Nikon will probably not invest much more in pro lenses designed specifically for DX SLR's. In fact
the rumor is they are finally going to jump into the compact APS-C/mirrorless game, like Fuji.
