OK folks. Nikon has announced that it will offer a digital F5f100 type body that uses the F mount and will sell aparently for less than $3000. 2,000,000 pixels! Check out Nikon Japan's site or photo.askey.com for information. Thank goodness somebody has committed to providing digital bodies for its 35mm lens system. Hip Hip Hooray for Nikon.

Let's hope that C, M and P are not far behind..

-- Stan McManus (Stanshooter@yahoo.com), February 19, 1999

Answers

This is the Nikon site with the announcment of the new digital body.

http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/news/dsc99-e_99.htm

-- Paul DiBiase (Paulcanada@hotmail.com), February 24, 1999.

Kodak also announced the DCS 620, which uses an F5 body and is a 2M pixel camera. I suspect we will see it before the Nikon model and that it will be considerably more expensive, too.

-- Danny Weber (danny_weber@compuserve.com), February 25, 1999.

**** Thank goodness somebody has committed to providing digital bodies for its 35mm lens system. Hip Hip Hooray for Nikon. ****

Both Canon and Nikon have had digital bodies based on the EOS-1n and N90s for years. What exactly is the big news here, other than an incremental improvement?

-- Mark Ciccarello (mark@ciccarello.com), March 18, 1999.

at first i thought the same thing mark did. but doesn't kodak make those cameras? i thought they took the bodies and modified them (with canon's and nikon's ok (and help) i'm sure)

this one is actually made by nikon right?

not that i think it really matters who makes the camera (kodak or nikon) but that may be what stan's cheering about?

-- Sean Hester (seanh@ncfweb.net), March 19, 1999.

Perhaps he's cheering about the price: $3000 would be a drop of 70% from the last Nikon catalogue I had for a digital SLR. I'd think if digital pro SLR bodies were priced within the same order of magnitude of film pro SLR bodies it would be big news.

-- John O'Connell (oconnell@siam.org), March 22, 1999.

Just from curiosity, I checked B&H: the new digicam, if it did come in at $3000, would represent a 50% price cut from current retail with a 40% gain in resolution.

-- John O'Connell (oconnell@siam.org), March 22, 1999.

Yes, it is the price of this body that makes it so interesting. Assuming that the initial reports are correct, Nikon will be producing a quality digital body at an affordable (by F5 standards) price. Will I rush out to buy one? No. I figure digital technology will still get better and since I can't afford an F5 I won't be able to afford a similarly priced digital body. But it is much better than the $10,000+ price tag I saw last year.

-- Stan McManus (stanshooter@yahoo.com), March 22, 1999.