Hot topic - lots of people (at least on photography boards) saying "WTF is the D4/D800 so expensive? I wish they could lower the price by taking out video! Where's my high-ISO D700 replacement? Where's my cheap FF camera?" And there are a lot of good posts here - PerroneFord and Stan in particular.

I also doubt that, were video capability "taken out", the D800 would be that much cheaper. My impression is that it's not that hard to add video recording capability, and even the support for things like high-spec codecs costs very little on a per-unit basis.

Moreover, Nikon has to sell 100,000s (perhaps millions) of each camera model per year. I really can't imagine a stills-only camera - were such thing even technologically sensible - would sell in sufficient quantities. (especially if film/TV studios are willing to buy up so many SLRs as minor expenses in a project's overall budget)

I also don't see a cheaper FF camera coming - see Thom Hogan's recent post on this. Bottom line: sensors are really expensive, especially when you think of it not in terms of "how much does an FX sensor cost over DX" but in terms of the broader costs that difference makes. A $2000 FX camera won't be profitable. I also believe the D700 cost about $3000 (inflation and exchange rate adjusted) when released. I really see the next $2000 camera as the DX D400 (which will probably be an outstanding camera).

Finally, I just finished looking at the work of one NPS photographer, Ami Vitale, when I came upon this thread. Her thoughts on video are fascinating from a "who uses it and why" perspective - this is more than just movie studios, or for journalists who need to feed the TV/youtube monster. Even without seeing her portfolio, her one paragraph discussion of video's creative possibilities would lead me to judge that she's a top-flight photographer.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/als-morning-meeting/99176/how-still-photographers-turn-to-video-using-a-single-camera/

Marc (who doesn't shoot video)

ETA: I didn't mean to single out the previous poster.

Cheers,

Marc

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"90% of my best life's work could have been made with a manual body, a 24mm lens, and a telephoto zoom in the 80-200 range"
- Galen Rowell
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