Two years ago Nikon announced the D3s, which was to be their flagship camera then. That camera set the benchmark for low-light performance and had the competition struggling to catch up to it. Today Nikon is back with their new flagship DSLR, the Nikon D4, which improves upon the already excellent low-light performance of the D3s and this time, makes it even faster.
Speed is one of the highlights of the D4, which has a startup time of
just 0.012 seconds. The D4 is also powerful enough to capture full
resolution JPEG or RAW images at up to 10fps with full AF/AE or up to
11fps with locked AF/AE. The D4 also uses Nikon’s new 51-point Advanced
Multi-Cam 3500 AF autofocus system, which is said to be faster and more
precise than before. To save all the data
coming at blazing fast speeds you will need a similarly fast memory
device so the D4 supports the new UDMA7 Compact Flash and the new XQD
memory cards.
The Nikon D4 uses a full-frame 16.2 megapixel FX-format (36 x 23.9mm)
CMOS sensor. It has a native ISO range of 100-12,800 but it can go as
high as 204,800, twice that of what the D3s could do. Best part about
the D3s was that even at those absurd ISO values it could still produce
usable images and Nikon claims the D4 can do the same, at even higher
sensitivities. Nikon is also using its EXPEED 3 image processing engine,
which they claim is responsible for the faster speeds and improved
performance.
The D4 uses a new 91,000-pixel RGB 3D Color Matrix metering system
which precisely analyzes each scene and recognizes factors such as color
and brightness before passing on the information to the camera’s on
board database.
The D4 uses a new compressed RAW format along with the standard Nikon
RAW (NEF) files, which consume less space and improves speed. There is
also a built-in HDR mode for combining multiple images of various
exposures into one image, something you’d usually have to do in
Photoshop on a computer. Finally, it can also do 1080p 30/24fps and 720p
60fps video recording in H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC format.
On the back, the keys have been rearranged a bit compared to the D3s
so now it is easier to use the camera in portrait orientation. There are
also a couple of joysticks for adjusting your focus points or moving an
image while viewing it. Nikon has also altered the camera shutter
button angle to a more comfortable 35-degree and made the D4 lighter so
now it is a lot easier to use compared to its predecessor.
The Nikon D4 will go on sale in February and will cost you $5999.95
(body-only), which is a lot higher than the $5200 that the D3s cost when
it was launched. Nikon does claim that the D4 is better in every way
compared to the D3s and if you thought that $5200 for the D3s was
justified then $6000 for the D4 should seem like a steal.
Anyway, this camera is not for us mere mortals so we are in no
position to judge its price. It’s meant for professional photographers
who take pictures that justify the cost of owning such a camera. They
have the D3100 and D5100 for the rest of us.
Shortly after it announced its new monster of a camera, Nikon
published the first sample photos captured with the D4. We only got a
handful of those, but at these early stages we should be happy that we
got anything at all.
We got three base ISO samples to demonstrate the kind of sharpness
and dynamic range that the big fella offers and an ISO 6400 image, which
should give us an idea of its high ISO performance.
Sadly, Nikon chose not to publish a photo captured at the D4 highest
setting – ISO 204,800, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see that in
action. But let’s waste no more time and cut to the main event. Ladies and gentlemen, the Nikon D4 first samples:
http://www.nikon.com.au/tmp/AYl/lMj/yoT/9xP/Gsa/Cn0/yoT/gVE/VHB.jpg
