So, not only should you not buy a DSLR this year, you shouldn't buy a cropped FOV lens this year. The incredibly tempting Nikon 18-200mm VR lens isn't magic; there'll be a 24-300mm full frame equivalent (it will cost a lot more) soon enough.
I imagine that there'll be a pretty rapid arms race, and you'll pretty soon see DSLR feature sets that more closely resemble the old film SLR feature sets, and for vaguely comparable prices, in the not-too-distant future. In other words, \"premium\" features like large, bright, pentaprism viewfinders (which you can only get on $1200 DSLRs today) will suddenly reappear in $450 DSLRs, along with decent controls.
I have a ten year old Nikon FM-10 which I bought, new, for AUD 250 (about US $200). This was Nikon's cheapest SLR body at the time (it's a completely manual camera), and it has (among many things) and a big, bright, gigantic pentaprism viewfinder. In order to get a similar viewfinder in a Nikon DSLR today, you need to buy a Nikon D80 -- a roughly $1000 body. (You also dual hard controls for shutter speed and aperture, which you do not get on their \"cheap\" $700 D40x, but you do get on my FM-10 or one of Canon's dirt cheap film SLRs.) Is there something magical about film cameras that makes their shutter speed knob and pentaprisms incredibly cheap? Um, no.
Similarly, we currently pay approximately $3000 extra for a full frame sensor. Sure, there's a bunch of nifty stuff in Nikon's D300 and D3 SLRs (e.g. they correct for lens distortion and aberration in the body)... but the big difference between the D300 and the D3 is the sensor. Does the better sensor cost $3000?
We've already seen Pentax and Olympus enter the DSLR market with cameras that have all the features of Canon and Nikon's top of the line \"enthusiast\" models for a fraction of the price.","$updatedAt":"2024-06-05T10:51:13.467+00:00",path:"do-not-buy-a-dslr-this-year",_created:"2024-07-09T20:33:33.207Z",id:"137",_modified:"2024-07-09T20:33:33.207Z","$id":"137",_path:"post/path=do-not-buy-a-dslr-this-year"}}