With the recent development in the line-up of both Nikon and Canon I would think more than twice before investing in any higher end DX lens, even if my current camera is a DX body...
Q (dpreview.com):
"A certain portion of our DX customers have already moved up to full-frame sensors. But not all. We understand that there is still some demand for a successor to the D300S and all we can say at this moment is that we are studying that demand."
Toshiaki Akagi, Department Manager in Nikon's 1st Designing Department of the Development Center in the Imaging Business Unit.
"studying the demand…" …hmm..
I guess you could interpret that as "busy doing nothing at all"…
The dream is still alive. :t:
But if someone came to me asking advice today, ready spend a lot on their first DSLR for bird photography, I would probably point them at Canon.
Dave
The IQ of the 7d mkII is still unknown…
So D300 owners (high end DX) moving to full frame. The D600, D610, and D750 aren't pro-cameras with small buffer, SD cards (the future maybe though), max shutter speed 1/4000 sec, lower fps, small bodies with less and smaller controls. The D800 and D810 is a much better fit, but at a considerable price increase, and lets face it most people don't need 36MP. Other options are used cameras (some great ones there) but Nikon doesn't get to sell any new ones, or moving to Canon.
Seems that Nikon have a great marketing strategy there.
The general strategy of trying to get as many people as possible to move to more expensive full frame cameras is understandable, even profitable. But I think they have "milked that cow dry" for now.
Forgive me for taking over this thread but that quote from Nikon's Design and Development spokesman just riles me up: "...we are studying that demand..." That's BS! They would have to be morons to be unaware of the strong demand for a D400 over the past few years. A more honest statement would be something like this: "We have been intentionally ignoring the demand for a D300s replacement and instead we have been leveraging a different strategy for quite some time..." Demand obviously doesn't drive all their decisions. For example, there is much greater demand for a new 400mm f/5.6 than an updated 400mm f/2.8 that is $3000 more expensive than the previous excellent lens! And look at the flood of 18-xxmm kit zooms they have released one after the other. Boy those were exciting. I give them credit for offering a few new lenses that actually match an existing gap or demand, such as the 80-400mm update, and the recent 20mm f/1.8. But it almost seems like they randomly decide what lenses to update.
Ok. I'm done ranting... sorry.
Dave