Nikon has announced the D3X, a new full frame DSLR with a whopping 24.5 megapixels. It is, more or less, a D3 with a bigger sensor and a bigger price tag. How big? $8000 big.
About that sensor. It will give images of up to 6048 x 4032 pixels, and runs from ISO 100 to a rather conservative ISO 1600, compared to the ISO 6400 available on the smaller 12MP D3. The images coming off that sensor range up to a huge 138 MB, making a 2GB CF card look like a 12 exposure 135 film.
Amazingly, Nikon says that the D3X can still shift up to five frames per second in full frame FX format, and up to seven fps if you shrink your images down to DX format.
So, why would you buy this, aside from a need to fill up an empty hard drive quickly? Nikon is pitching this at the studio photographers who need all the pixels they can get, along with fashion and landscape photogs. It makes sense. If you are under bright lights or have the camera sitting on a tripod, you don't need the amazing low-light sensitivity of the original D3 (or D700). We actually like the fact that there is a choice here: you get the same body and functions with both the D3 and the D3X, but you can choose the sensor. It's, you know, just like changing films used to be. Only a little more expensive.
Is $8000 too much? If you stack it up against the alternative – medium format cameras – then $8000 starts to look cheap. And we'd be very surprised indeed if Nikon didn't follow this up in several months with a D700X.
Product page [Nikon]
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