There are a lot of Nikon photographers who can’t justify the expense of moving to a D2X waiting for the long-anticipated D200. Initial rumors claimed that the camera and specifications would be released in September. This never happened.
Yesterday night someone claimed to have used a pre-production D200 on HI-2, which translates to ~ ISO 3200. New versions of the D200 specifications have since made their way into the rumor mill, with claims of a new, more informative battery system, a more featureful on-camera flash and an F6 based body to name a few. Price is rumored to be lower than the 5D, but not half its list as some have claimed. Claims to work with fully manual Nikkors and has mirror-lock-up.
Truth is, we’ll never know until we hear a press announcement. I’m interested in the high ISO performance. I take most of my pictures handheld and in the darker streets of Toronto or indoors regularly find myself taking pictures above ISO 800. Having relatively noise-free high-sensitivity photographs would be my draw.
Along with the rumored D200 specs came rumored news of one completely new lens – the Nikon 18 – 200 3.5 – 5.6 VR. Two things to note – it doesn’t have a fixed aperture and the difference between focal lengths is ~ 10x. Looks like a consumer oriented super-zoom. Previous entries in this category aren’t stellar performers because the lens designers have to compromise, giving more importance to range and usability over sheer image perfection.
If:
- This lens exists
- Its performance is reasonably good
- It doesn’t break the bank – with my definition of ‘break’ being very flexible
It’ll probably make it onto my Personal Indulgence list along with the Sigma 10-20 DC that I’m going to be buying.