D700 Marketing Discussion

What is a pro-sumer? Nikon defines the D700 (and the D300) as a professional body. I make a living from photography, and I travel a lot. D3 is too big for me. So my camera of choice will be the D700. That makes it a professional body to me as well.

Was the D700 a necessary step for Nikon? Of course it was. It arrives three years after the Canon 5D, but it will be a strong contender in that market segment. The fact that it's launched less than a year after the D3 doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't mean that the D3 will become obsolete. If I needed a camera with a vertical grip, I would buy the D3, which is actually smaller than the D700 with a grip. Horses for courses.

The D700 will obviously steal sales from the D3 as well as the D300, but for Nikon, what matters is how many customers they can attract in total, and how much profit they can make from those customers. If they hadn't launched the D700, their customers may have bought products with less economical significance from Nikon, or even worse: moved to Canon or Sony.

I'm reasonably sure that the Nikon management knows what will be Canon's (and Sony's) next launches, but I'm also reasonably sure that it's more important for Nikon to find and define their own market niches rather than launch direct competitors to whatever the competition comes up with.

Has Nikon become a camera body supplier more than a lens supplier? At the moment, partly yes, but probably mainly because they had some catching up to do. After the launch of the D90 (or whatever) and the 24MP Dsomething, Nikon will have a line-up that is hard to match for anyone. That is particularly true for Canon, who has renewed their entire range except the 5D during the last 12 months, without coming up with anything that excels particularly compared to the available Nikons.

I shoot with a D200. I also love shooting film because of the FF viewfinder! The D700 is only ~95% covererage but then, my F100 is only 96%, so I'm not gonna complain!

My problem with the D700 is that with the grip (which I would get) makes the camera taller than the D3 and almost the same price. Would the sensor cleaning and the thumb-pad on the grip sway me towards the D700 over the D3? Don't know. Either way, both are out of my budget.

DSLR FF market: What was the release price of the Canon 5D? Was it compariable to the D700?

Nikkors: Yes, We need more new non-PC lenses!

Sorry if this is kinda off topic.

"Nikon's turning into a camera body company, not the optics king we know and love! "

Regarding that comment, Herbert Keppler once noted that digital has flip-flopped the roles of bodies and lenses. Whereas a person would once keep a body for years and build a stable of lenses, now a person can have 3-4 lenses and move through bodies.

Everybody knows that no one can live with just 3-4 lenses, though....

Three new bodies in, what is it, 6 months? This rate of new body "inflation" seems to me to be very likely to keep non-digital photographers waiting. Why buy now when a better, cheaper, one will be along in another 6 months?

I have to say I suspect many D300 owners may feel a tinge of irritation at the appearance of the D700.

"DSLR FF market: What was the release price of the Canon 5D? Was it compariable to the D700?"

I believe the 5D started out at US$3,000.

What surprises me is that Nikon does not introduce the so called "D3X" 20+MP pro model before the D700, but that should also be coming soon.

The $3000 initial price is exactly what I expected, and that should drop to $2500 or so by mid 2009. However, the D700 has more features than I thought. Having 8 frames/sec with the MB-D10, Multi-CAM 3500, etc., the D700 is quite close to the D3 in a lot of ways. The D700 should also be an excellent sports camera that will work very well during the Olympics. At the same time, there should be more downward price pressure on the D3, somewhat blurring the difference between the two.

I have pointed out several times that there are reasons the Canon 5D is selling around $1800 or even $1700. Essentially Canon has to deeply discount an old model in order to move remaining stock. But I don't at all expect Canon to sit still. Expect new product announcements from Canon before the Olympics and certainly before Photokina in September. The 5D replacement is clearly way overdue.

"I have to say I suspect many D300 owners may feel a tinge of irritation at the appearance of the D700."

I don't think many buyers will be too upset due to the large price difference. D300: $1799 (initial) D700: $2999 $1200 difference. Would most people pay that much more if they had the choice?

Yeah, I know the D3 was $3200 more than the D300 so the D300 or D3 choice is a big difference.

Marc,

Yes, actually maybe it will be the D3 owners who will be even more annoyed!

As a D300 owner myself, I'll be happy to use both the D300 and D700, for different purposes. Even the D3 cannot match the higher pixel density for using long lenses. Additionally, the fact that the 51 AF points cover a large portion of the frame is a big advantage. On both the D3 and D700, those 51 AF points are too concentrated in the center.

Canon originally announced the 5D in August 2005 and priced it at $3299, but they stared providing rebates after merely a few months: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0508/05082209canoneos5d.asp

At this point, the 5D (especially new 5D) is mainly for bottom fishers.