>It is also entirely possible that Nikon is dropping the idea
>of a high end pro/high end amateur DX series. ... For the professional, the D4
> and D800 series should suffice.

If Nikon could come up with a DX sensor that performs as well as the D700 sensor, that would be a highly sought after item for pro and high-end Sports and Wildlife shooters (and everyone else too). I would even prefer mine in a pro body (although I am probably in a minority there). Certainly for wildlife, DX has immediate and obvious advantages for me in good light (unfortunately good light is something less than 50% of the wildlife opportunities I get). Even the current level of the D7000 sensor is pretty good if we gave it a body that has all the D4 advances in a D300-sized body. I do take your point though, a (rumoured) 16mp DX crop from a D800 would kinda/sorta give me most of the "D400" advantages I would like to get. But it would need to have the high fps/buffer advantages that a D400 could bring. Will be very interesting to see what happens next!

It's certainly hard to say what is going to happen to the camera market, but I have always felt that given enough high ISO quality on DX, we could see a strong continuation and even ultimately resurgence of a pro DX market given the size, weight, and cost advantages. This might be 10 years away still. Right now, we are in the age of FX supremacy, where the FX advantages remain clear.

So the interesting question remains what sensor for the D400 (and please don't let it be based on the noise-machine Sony Nex-7/A77/A65 sensor unless Nikon really has some image processing tricks up it's sleave)

Best regards, SteveK

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