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Nikon D2Xs. I'd get mine here, here or here, but get a D3 or D300 instead. NEW: Pro DSLR Comparison 03 February 2016 September 2013: they sell for $600 today. March 2008: The D2Xs has been superceded by the far superior D3 and D300. This review is now an historical artifact, mostly written back in 2006. 2006 is ancient history in digital camera years. INTRODUCTION The D2Xs is an updated D2X. See my D2X page for the bulk of the details. Here I'm only going to explain what's new with the D2Xs. PRICE AND AVAILABILITY Nikon predicts late June, 2006 for $4,700. WHAT'S NEW Resolution, speed and most of the D2Xs is the same as the D2X. Same body. Same camera. Everything gets a little bit better every time any camera maker rolls another year of wisdom and refinement into firmware and hidden internal hardware updates. What's more important than any of the minor changes listed below are how well everything comes together as a whole. Digital cameras in 2006 are still in the same primitive stages of development that PCs were in the 1970s. Today it's important to go with the newest products, unlike with film cameras. Nikon tells us the D2Xs adds: 1.) A new LCD with a wide viewing angle. It seems like the same specs as the D200 LCD: 2.5," 170 degree viewing angle. Each LCD is color calibrated at the factory. I've never found any fault with any Nikon DSLR LCDs for color variation. Each sample looks like every other one I've tried of the same model. 2.) Viewfinder improved for using the cockamamie high-speed crop mode. 3.) Claimed better battery life. Nikon claims 3,800 shots, but won't tell us how they measure that. The first published battery life claims for the D200 were baloney, but since the D2X already has extraordinary battery life I wouldn't worry. Then again, it's the fantastic wide-angle LCD of the D200 which limits the D200's life, so if I were worried about this I would see how many D2Xs shots I could get with heavy LCD use. Use the new LCD of the D2Xs and it might have less life than the old D2X! 4.) Lots of firmware enhancements. I told you so! I haven't laid hands on one yet, and today the wisdom and experience coded in firmware is more important than hardware alone. New menu colors, whoopee-do. 5.) Can use 3D-Color Matrix Metering II even in the High-speed Crop mode. I think the D2X erroneously looked at the entire frame, not just the cropped area. 6.) Adobe RGB works in all three color modes. 7.) sRGB B/W color mode. So B/W is now a color mode? Now I know why I keep having to write "How To" articles to explain all this. 8.) In-camera image size reduction selectable from 2,560 to 640 pixels wide. Nikon's unclear if this is simple size reduction, or cropping as well. Even my pocket Casio can crop and reduce images at the same time. 9.) Auto ISO now allows setting the maximum ISO permitted, just like D200. I suspect it's still screwed up stays active when set even in manual exposure mode. Check it out: if this flaw is still there, the camera jerks around the ISO even in manual exposure mode, destroying the whole point of manual exposure mode. 10.) Added third-stop and half-stop increments between ISO 800 and 1,600. (ISO 1,000, ISO 1,130 and ISO 1,250, called Hi+0.3, Hi+0.5 and Hi+0.7). I'd never use these; I set my cameras to set ISO in full stops. If you shoot up here this could be helpful, since noise starts to become significant up here and changes a lot at each setting. 11.) New EN-EL4a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Nikon claims 3,800 shots per charge, probably an unrealistic claim since they don't tell us how they arrived at it. 12.) New $570 software package called Image Authentication Software, available in July 2006, helps show that an image file from a D2Xs is unaltered. This is the same idea that Canon has sold for a few years. This is for forensic and evidence photography. The police will love this: it's important to be able to show that images are as they are. When I was lucky enough to do a police ride-along I was impressed at how all the Polaroids and burnt CDs of digital images were put in a slot in a locked bin so that they couldn't be tampered with later. Nikon's package works with JPGs, TIF, and NEF files. 13.) New $70 remote control software called Camera Control Pro available in July 2006. It lets you control the D2Xs from a computer. This also works with Nikon's WT-2a wireless transmitter, which would be fun for annoying my wife: put the D2Xs on the counter in her office, and fire away at random. It would be even more fun with a cheap, silent pocket camera that I wouldn't worry about if it got stolen. I could leave that anywhere! Oh well. Remote control used to be bundled with Nikon’s Capture 4 software, so I'm gathering that Nikon took it out of the new Capture NX to sell it separately. Canon gives this away even with the Canon A70 point-and-shoot I bought in 2003. NIKON'S SPECIFICATIONS Resolution: 12.4 megapixels Sensor: CMOS, 23.7 x 15.7mm. (Standard DX size) Image Sizes: ISO: 100 to 800, up to 3,200 in trick push modes: HI-0.3, HI-0.5, HI-0.7, HI-1 and HI-2. Memory: CompactFlash (CF) Card (Type I/II) and Microdrives File Types: Shooting Modes White Balance LCD Monitor Playback Tricks Delete Functions Video Output Interface Voice Recording Text Input (Secret
Message Embedding) Usable Lenses *Indication of aperture No., after user inputs the aperture f/No. and focal length F=mm by multi-selector operation. Electronic rangefinder usable with maximum aperture of f/5.6 or faster Picture Angle Viewfinder Eyepoint Focusing Screen Viewfinder Frame Coverage Viewfinder Magnification Reflex Mirror Lens Aperture Autofocus Focus Servo Focus Areas AF Area Modes Focus Lock Exposure Metering System Exposure Metering Range Exposure Meter Coupling Exposure Modes Exposure Compensation Auto Exposure Lock Auto Exposure Bracketing Shutter Flash Sync: up to 1/250 sec. Flash Control Flash Sync Modes Ready-light Accessory Shoe Sync Terminal Self-timer Depth-of-Field Preview Button Remote Control via 10-pin remote connector GPS Power Battery Monitoring System Tripod Socket Dimensions (W x H x D) Supplied Accessories (will vary by country) Optional Accessories AVOIDING SCAMS I saw tons of scams offering the D2X cheap. Read here about scams and how to buy. Be very, very suspicious if anyone's selling it for less then $4,699. For instance, www.MivaStyle.com sure looks like a scam, since they don't take credit cards. With the D2X, otherwise intelligent people wrote me that they actually sent strangers in foreign countries money orders for the D2X at great prices. Unfortunately the cameras never arrived. If it's too good to be true, it is! If a dealer doesn't take credit cards you'll probably never see anything you order. SUMMARY If you earn your living with your camera you'll want one of these. If you want a camera to take with you for fun, relaxation and vacation this isn't it: it's a huge, hulking beast of a pro camera. You will stand out everywhere you go, and you'll always know you have this thing around your neck. Don't discount the D70 and D50 for their twice better weight, twice higher ISO speeds, twice better sync speed and less than one-fifth price! If you shoot sports you'll love and need the triple frame rate of the D2Xs compared to the D70. Also look at the D2H/D2Hs, which saves you a lot of money by trading less resolution for more ISO. |