Nikon D700 now officially discontinued. And so is the D300s

Nikon now officially stopped promoting the Nikon D700 and Nikon D300s on its core Japanese website. See below picture. Website translated with Google Chrome.

D800, here we come ;-).

Nikon to discontinue the D300s and the D700

As expected, Nikon will discontinue the D700 as soon as the D800 becomes available. Several outlets today report rumors along this line. Also the D300s shall be discontinued, as the "s" represents more of an update than a conceptual upgrade, and become the D400. Both the D400 and D800 cameras have been been seen in rumor posts before.

So all of this makes good sense. Before long we will know.

Canon 5DX announcement in parallel with Nikon D800?

As several outlets report, Canon is neither standing still nor willing to let Nikon own the show at CP+ Japan next month. As such, it is rumored that Canon is going to announce the successor of the 5D Mk II, called Canon 5D X, at the same day as Nikon is rumored to announce the Nikon D800:

February 7th.

Oha. This will be the moment we have been waiting for so long. And it looks as if we even get more choice than we thought ...

Nikon D800 on February 7th

Nikonrumors.com believes there will be an announcement on Feb 7th and they think it will be the Nikon D800. They had the right info on the D4 so I am hoping they are correct on the Nikon D800, too. 

Its going to be a good year :-)

Nikon D4 and no Nikon D800 yet

Very happily seen the announcement of the Nikon D4. And a bit disappointed that the Nikon D800 has not been announced at the same time - which some sourced had suggested.

But the one interesting piece of information was the involuntarily (?) published picture of the Nikon D800 within the full new Nikon DSLR line up on the German company website nikon.de, as captured by nikonrumors

Compared to today's lineup photo

Clearly the D4 got added today. And in "yesterday's" image, there is potentially the D800 at position 4 which in "today's" image got replaced. Nikonrumors says that the picture of the D800 is similar to earlier leaked ones.

Funnily, the professional range on the nikon.de website now has 6 cameras in the image, but only 5 in the list (D4, D3X, D3S, S700, D300S). Yet another sign that the announcement of the Nikon D800 should not be too far away?

January 10th, 2012, PMA in Las Vegas and Nikon announcements

The industry is getting ready for PMA in Las Vegas, opening its gates January 2012. As every year, camera manufacturers will be releasing some information just before the event. And apparently Nikon is holding a press conference on Friday January 6th to just do that. According to nikonrumors, the D4 will be announced.

If you look at the history of Nikon announcements the time differential seems to make sense

D3   August, 2007
D3s  October, 2009  +2yr, 2mo
D4   January, 2012   +2yr, 3mo

For the D300 line history suggests:

D300   August 2007
D300s  July 2009      +1yr, 11mo
D400   June 2011     +1yr, 11mo  --> late already !

And for the D799 line:

D700    July 2008
D700s   never happened  +2yr (assumed)
D800    July 2012     +2yr (assumed)


Just by its own timeline, the D800 would have been announced in July 2012. Deriving from the distance to the D3, the "7/800" series follows approx. +11 months after the D4. Which would bring the announcement of the D800 to December 2012.

I believe waiting until end 2012 would be absolutely insane. Come on Nikon !

Nikon D800 announcement early next year

As nikonrumors writes in this article, the Nikon D3 and the Nikon D700 will be succeeded early next year:

 D3, D700 successors. The two models that have been in production for several years are expected to have their successors announced early in the new year.

I am more hopeful than ever that this will actually happen. Lets see when precisely the announcement press conference dates come through.