Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Rumors about a new entry level DSLR between the Nikon D3000 and the D5000 started few months ago. This new camera will not be called D4000 as previously expected, but Nikon D3100."

Well, that'd make sense; Nikon switched to a 4 digit convention to avoid numbering congestion in this day of 2 year or less product cycles. What's interesting about the rumours (Photokina is 2 months away) is that Nikon appears to be following up on its announcement of coming up with some surprises. In this case the rumours are hinting that the new camera will support continuous AF in live view and video mode, something like the micro Four Thirds cameras.

If patent applications are to believed, Nikon has been working on this a while, and among the several patent diagrams shown, the interesting one is this:

In case you can't figure it out, it's a live view sensor with a separate AF sensor. I'm very curious to see if Nikon will implement a main pellicle mirrior (last seen in the Canon EOS 1n RS) in in a live view camera to cope with the AF issues in contrast detection AF methods. Problem with pellicle mirrors is that it robs light, as essentially you share some light with the other sensor.

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"Nikon Corp. plans to introduce a new type of single-lens reflex camera as early as this fiscal year, President Makoto Kimura said. The "new concept" model will probably have an enhanced function for video recording and may adopt the so-called mirrorless structure, Kimura said in an interview today in Tokyo. "It could be any time this fiscal year or the following year, as new models are starting to sell," he said, declining to specify when the product will be available."

Alright, so it "may" adopt a mirrorless structure (which means it's not a SLR anyway), but regardless, I wonder what will it be like? Like I've said, if it is not using the F-mount, it is a new camera system on its own, with all the drawbacks (limited lenses, support, accessories, third-party items).