does D4/D800 mean Nikon focus is now for FX

By volume, 95% of the DSLR market is DX. In fact, there are very few players in the FX arena, mainly Canon and Nikon. You wonder whether Sony is still in the full-frame maket; Sony has only introduced an A900 in 2008 followed by a 850 that is almost identical. Nobody is going to abandon DX where most of the money is made.

Nikon simply has to introduce the D4 because the Olympics is coming, and since they can no longer sell the D700 in Japan, it also has to be replaced by the D800. Prior to those, the last Nikon FX DSLR was the D3S introduced in October 2009. In other words, there were no new (Nikon) FX DSLRs from 2010 and 2011 or in fact from anybody else.

The D300S is in the same situation as the D700: cannot be sold in Japan and is discontinued. However, given how successful the D7000 is, Nikon can afford to wait a bit on the D300S' replacement. Their Thailand factory is just returning to capacity after the flood shut them down for 2, 3 months. They are busy building the D800 now. Expect new DX DSLRs in a few months. For example, Nikon tends to update the D40/D60/D3000/D3100-class DSLRs every year, year and half. Expect an update to the D3100 later on this year.

it's a worrying though with money already invested in DX lenses...

DX crop mode on a D800: 15MP. Maybe not the most elegant solution, but it does give you a way to FX without an immediate need to abondon your DX lenses.

it's a worrying though with money already invested in DX lenses...

I think you can stop worrying, or at least push that one way, way down on the list of things to lose sleep over. The only likely scenario whereby Nikon might abandon development and production of new DX format cameras would be one whereby the technology and economics existed to allow Nikon to produce an FX camera (with DX crop mode) at the price point of the current D3100. And even that scenario might not lead to the end of DX, since that format would also be that much cheaper to produce. Imagine the market potential for say a sub-$300 16MP small format DSLR.

As Shun noted, the market for $3000+ DSLRs is very, very small (comparatively speaking). The market for sub-$1000 DSLRs is astronomically huge by comparison.

I agree that DX is not in danger. If anything, I have to wonder about the viability of FX. I think Nikon & Canon are in it partially (if not mainly!) to drive sales of expensive pro lenses.

Kent in SD

OK, I guess it's the next birthday then for a D400, not this!

to drive sales of expensive pro lenses.

Oh, and I thought it was about image quality and system versatility. Silly me. Of course all of us FX users buy all of our gear without doing any testing of what we gain for the money. We just buy the most expensive thing that is offered, completely without any brain activity as slaves to Nikon's corporate greed.

There is no "greed" here. We have the choice to see if we want to choose to buy their product, or use something else. Didn't Tamron just come out with a 24-70mm f2.8 VR? True greed comes from European governments forcing you to pay whatever tax they say (e.g 60%!), and if you don't they send people with guns out after you. You have NO choice. Obviously Nikon wants to drive sales of lenses with these FX bodies. I think it's likely that most of the reason they have FX. Another part is to compete with Canon. If they don't compete with Canon, Nikon will missing FX lens sales.

Kent in SD

just remember, nikon is on it's schedule, not ours. when they're fully recovered from last year's natural disasters, i'm sure they're anxious to provide all the cameras we can possibly buy. certainly there will be some surprises, but a replacement for the D300/s is virtually assured.

True greed comes from European governments forcing you to pay whatever tax they say (e.g 60%!), and if you don't they send people with guns out after you

Governments are not in the business to make money but to provide services to people that the representatives of the people have deemed better to implement by public funds. My tax percentage is somewhere around 30%. That gets me (and my children, if I were to have them) essentially free health care, free day care, free education primary school to PhD (with as many degrees as I care to take; for example I have a student who is enrolled in three higher education programs and doesn't pay anything for it) including housing support during studies, reduced price meals at student restaurants, etc. among the more usual road building, defence etc. costs that governments take part in. It is a bargain, and the more education you get and children you make the more you gain from it. Finns pay 50% less for health care per capita than Americans do (this includes both public and private sector spending). Yet the latter are not any healthier. In Finland, nobody is discriminated against when they need health care. Even if you as an American tourist were to have an accident in my country and have to go through intensive care for two weeks, you'd have to pay about 20-25 EUR/day for the whole thing (and if you didn't pay, no men with guns would come after you). All this even though you didn't pay any taxes to our government, ever. They'd probably not even remember to ask if you have insurance. So our government is greedy, huh?

Obviously Nikon wants to drive sales of lenses with these FX bodies.

It started with people having FX lenses and many wanted full frame cameras to make the most out of the lenses. Nikon tried to make do with DX only for a while but they didn't really make a lens system based on the DX format; most DX lenses are consumer oriented. A few fast lenses have appeared but not a comprehensive system (for example, no rectilinear wide angle primes or an equivalent of the 24 PC-E exist for DX). As a result many customers went elsewhere. A lot of this had to do with competitive image quality in low light. Nikon returned with D3 in 2007 which was a big success and has since made five other FX cameras which are very competitive. They have continued to evolve the lens system for FX with great vigor which they never seemed to have for DX. This is not a problem, it is a good thing. As of today, FX cameras can be used in almost any scenario imaginable, from candle lit walking precessions, night sports, to studio, landscape and architecture with movements etc. There is even talk of medium format digital disappearing because of the 36MP D800(E) (I don't believe this will happen). Thanks to the lenses that are made for it and the excellent FX sensors. FX was the photographer's choice, not so much Nikon's IMO. Now, they embrace it, of course, having realized they're good at it.

I suspect many D3100 and D5100 class camera customers to gradually move to mirrorless interchangeable lens systems. Nikon is trying to fight this by making a mirrorless system with a too small sensor size, but then people will simply go buy something else. Samsung, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony NEX, Fuji etc. These companies don't yet have the upper hand but ordinary people's desire for small cameras is overwhelming in my experience. My suspicion is that in 5-10 years DX DSLRs may no longer be manufactured. The lenses may live with adapters, for a while, and on FX cameras where the size of the mirror box plays only a small role and the optical viewfinder image is a bit bigger.