Thalassa

My thoughts exactly. It appears as if Canon is spinning its wheels of late; most of its new releases seem to be less than stellar.

Cheers,
T.

AnalogMan

Waited eagerly for the D600 based on rumored prices. 2099 is too much though. I was willing to pay 1800 at the most for one. Which means keep using my D5000 or buy a D7000 in order to use the lenses I had accumulated in anticipation of getting the D600 which all require a camera internal focus motor.

I am quite disappointed in D600's price but Nikon has to manage demand for its other FX cameras, right

glennaa11

I have had a D7000 for a while now...pretty much since it came out. I really love it. It handles very well and the controls become quite intuitive. Definitely a step up from a D5000. D7K price has been reduced to $999. Have seen rumors that a replacement is in the works but nothing definitive.

mobilebucky

The 6D really a meh. Like most people says it is like a FF rebel. At 2100, nikon alternative certainly better on paper and it is available now. Consider 5d3 only few hundreds more (like Adorama had it on their EBay store for $2750 over the weekend). I just don't see people will go with that when Dec rolls around. I agree Canon latest had not been their finest, seems like everything is overpriced by 25%. From their lenses ($2300 for 24-70 II??) to all their bodies. I am glad I went with Sony RX100 instead of waiting for the S110 /G15 for my pocket P&S.

anrkitec

I suspect that Canon dedicated a lot of resources to developing their putative top-end DSLR-which-is-really-a-motion-picture-camera, which may have distracted them some from other projects.

While the D600 looks to be a fantastic camera the pricing seems curious. Surely many will opt to get a D800 for a few hundred more - though perhaps that is what Nikon really wants [?].

I actually like the idea of a 24MP sensor over a 36MP one for most situations; faster and more reasonable file sizes. Also gotta love a 100% viewfinder at this price-point as well, but crippling the bracketing feature seems like a cheap move just to give the D800 a features advantage. Thank [insert deity of choice] they included and in-body lens motor.

As good as the D800 is, I still find myself using my D700 more often. The D600 might change that - will have to see. The funny thing about all of this is how it seems to highlight - at least for me - just how great a camera the D700 is. More than 4-years old and it still acquits itself well up against the current state-of-the-art.

allset2travel

+1.
I didn't consider the D800 because of it's over the top file size. You need a whole new infrastructure (aka PC & storage & printer) to support/handle the 36 MP files.
The D600 file size is still too large, but livable for me.

tomatocracy

On the other hand, the 5D3 and 1DX are getting very good reviews now that they are actually available and Canon glass still has the edge as well (Nikon simply doesn't have lenses like the TS-E 17, 85L or 100-400L, and have only just now released an 800/5.6). Nikon's only real edge is in the Sony sensor tech (which is better but the circumstances where that matters are actually pretty limited for your average user, particularly for this type of camera where I suspect most users will shoot JPEG) and in price. Canon has an issue mainly with the way it specs its cameras up "on paper". I think Canon know this and that is what has driven them to the built-in Wifi and GPS in the 6D.

The thing which I really don't get about the 6D is the lack of popup flash - if this is meant to be the entry-level FF upsell from a crop camera, that will be missed and with optical slave flash control as in the newer crop cameras can be very useful. On paper, the focusing specs look odd as well - loss of significant accuracy if you put an f/2.8 or lower lens on the thing - but you never know how this will play out in reality.

anrkitec

This is nonsense IMO.

Canon makes some great products and I really hate the whole Nikon vs. Canon argument but it is posts like this that keep that stuff going.

For every TS-E 17 that Nikon doesn't have there is a Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 that Canon doesn't have and I submit that the "Sony sensor tech which is better"* is actually one hell of a lot more relevant and useful to "the average user" than is a $13,000 800mm f/5.6 and while Canon has a great long-lens portfolio, their flash system is woefully behind Nikon's.

For some Canon will work best, for others Nikon is a better fit, but there is no denying that Nikon has leapfrogged Canon in terms of IQ for the last few years just as Canon took the lead back in the mid-00's and may do so again at some point in the future. It isn't a zero-sum game - it is cumulative.

*****

*The derisiveness of the "Sony sensor tech" comment aside - Nikon actually designs and manufactures some of their CMOS sensors and licenses Sony patents and uses their fabs for others. Only the lower-end models use off-the-shelf Sony parts.

tomatocracy

The point I was trying to make was that it's very easy to bash Canon "on paper" because of seemingly inferior specs in their bodies but when people have actually got their hands on the recent releases (5D3 and 1DX), suddenly they love the system again - and I think that's because we've got to the point now where the feature and quality differences are so small that they only make a difference to a tiny proportion of photographers - which is of course great news for everyone.

The sensor advantage in particular is overstated IMHO for a camera aimed at the audience the 6D/D600 are. Most of my "average user" (non-photographer) friends with DSLRs have only ever shot in JPEG and will only ever shoot in JPEG (despite the number of times I've tried to convince them otherwise). If you do that, there is very little difference between the two in IQ terms - and I think it is these sort of people who the 6D/D600 are aimed at. Even if you shoot in RAW, for my style of photography at least, there are relatively few situations where I really feel that I need more out of the shadows.

Personally, if I wasn't tied into a system today, I would therefore most likely be choosing systems on the basis of cost - and this is where Canon really falls down - they seem (in the UK at least) to be around 20-25% more expensive e.g. comparing the D800 vs 5D3 or D4 vs 1DX.

printingray

Just get new D 700 :P

anrkitec

I disagree.

I would agree if were were talking about the Rebel-Whatever/D3200 crowd but the target demo for the D600/6D are both acutely aware of and care very much about these differences even if they never actually use these cameras to the camera's full potential [which I would wager is true of the vast majority of D600/D800/6D/5D owners], why else would they pony up $2000 when they could get 85% of the JPEG quality for 30% of the cost.

A significant number of people who are not pros of some variety or another who spend $2000+ on a body are keenly aware of these subtle IQ differences even if only in a mine-is-bigger-than-yours way. If they weren't then the entry/mid FX segment wouldn't even exist as, in a world that already has the D4/D800/5D/1D, no pro "needs" a D600/6D. A majority of sales of the D600/6D segment cameras are to "enthusiasts" and in photography, as in every other hobby, enthusiasts care very much about small differences in specifications.

Thalassa

Agreed.

I am not a pro but rather an enthusiast who occasionally sells an image. I started out with a D70 in 2004. Shot exclusively JPEG until 2008, then switched to RAW for good. I upgraded to D300 in 2009. I have no intention to going for a higher pixel count DX body like D7000. When my upgrade time comes (early 2014e, most likely it will be a FF DSLR, or alternatively something like a next-gen Fuji X-Pro1 or Sony RX1. So I would definitely be choosing in the D600 over the D7000 if I were upgrading now.

There most certainly is a market for the D600/6D type of cameras.

Cheers,
T.

anrkitec

I am somewhere in the middle as well.

I want a D700 with a ~24MP sensor [all else being equal] not because my abilities exceed the capabilities of the D700 but because I am sometimes forced to crop or apply distortion correction and thus a 12MP image can quickly become an 8-10 MP image which can present problems with printing and with increased perception of noise.

FlyingDoctorwu

I'm still waiting for an upgrade for my D700... my idea would be a camera with 16 MP, 6 FPS in a similar body... hmm like a small D4.... The D700 is still a fantastic camera and has treated me well. I would like to play with some of the newer bells and whistles (video maybe) but I don't want 36 MP of the D800. I handled the D600 the other day and much prefer the more robust build of the D700/800....

FDW
PS for whoever wants to see a fanstic lens, much better than the canon 100-400, check out the Nikon 200-400 F4... Truly an incredible piece.

NurseRatched

I'd be all over a D700x/D700s/D750, with the 24.5mp of the D3x, the 9fps of the D3s, the dual CF slots of both, combined with a shutter with quiet mode.

The sheer bulk of the D3/D4 is a bit too much for my small hands, so I'm quite happy to stay with my beloved D700, even if the thing's a brick. I certainly don't need 36mp files.

I've played with the D600, and although the image quality seems impressive enough (it plays very nicely indeed with a 24-70), the build itself is...meh. There's a couple of psychological things that I have a hard time reconciling with that camera - the semi-magnesium alloy body, the max shutter speed (I know, ISO 100 mitigates the 1/4000 sec), the presence of a scene mode dial on a FX body, the $900 price differential between D600 and D800....IMHO the price point for a non-pro body should not be over $2k.