The D200 and D2x WILL take better photos than the D50, though as you correctly point out, the D50 has better noise characteristics at high ISO.

I do not think so. I was thinking of getting a D200 as a second body as I often switch between birds and insects when I walk in the field. I thought D200 with VR80-400 and D50 with Micro-Nikkor 60mm should serve me well. In looking to details of the D200 I found many drawbacks of the D200 when compare with the D50.

1) D200 can not use regular Nikon batteries. I shall have to buy special D200 batteries as spare.
2) D200 use soon to be obsolete Flashcard compare with D50 use of the popular SD card.
3) D50 with 6 megapixel is already a pain in the neck when I have to load and process a hundred RAW files. Thinking of 10+ megapixel scare me.
4) the only features that I like in D200 are bigger and finer screen, more direct buttons instead of having to push two keys at the same time. All these only make D200 more convenience but not going to help me make better pictures.

For the D2X I think the camera is too big and too heavy. I believe the D200 will eventually replace the D2X.

Do you know something we don't?

No, I do not know any thing you don't. Just look at the number of p&s cameras (most of them use sd cards) that are being sold today compare to pro cameras. With differences in production volume there is no way for flash card to be able to survive the competition from sd cards.

My concern is personal, I do not want to buy an expensive 2gb card today and will not be able to use it in my future cameras.

It seems to be that more and more cameras are using SD but I think It will be a long time before they stop producing CF. The best idea is to have dual slots like you get in some Olympus and Fuji cameras - now that is a useful idea. You can have one expensive high speed card inserted for when you want to work quickly and a cheaper high volume card in the other slot for when it does'nt matter - and you need never run out of memory at that vital moment!

Good point but Sony use memory sticks and Fuji and Olympus use XD cards in their compacts so SDs aren't universal - yet(!) It'll be interesting to see how the camera-phone market with it's mini-cards develops, though.

The reason Nikon can make D50 smaller than D70s is probably because of the use of smaller SD card. I used to have Sony digital cameras now i have several Memorystick laying in the shoes box!

I think the future pro cameras will have built-in memories.

Your reasons are nothing to do with the quality of the photos. They are to do with other factors specific to you. Having to buy a D200 battery - which can be used in the D50/70 but not vica versa - is no big deal given the total camera cost. CF is not soon to be obsolete. The D200 can shoot at 6MP if required. The D200 will not replace the D2x though it will take some sales. They are different beasts.

The D200 has numerous advantages over the D50/D70: MLU, sensible self-timer, brighter viewfinder, larger LCD, higher MP, better build and sealing, better ergonomics (bigger buttons), much highe frame rate, better auto-focus, better metering, will meter with manual lenses, some sort of GPS wotsit, a sort of time lapse photography mode, and so on.

Of course for many the D50/D70 will be preferred. The D70 - which I own - is very good indeed.

Leif

The Canon 350D is smaller than the D50 but still uses CF but many people criticise its small size, even adding a battery-grip to improve the handling, so I can't see further miniaturisation of camera bodies being the way forward for DSLR design.

Obviously, the sales of compact cameras will be much greater worldwide, but I wonder how many extra SD cards will be purchased by the average user compared to the extra CF cards bought by SLR users

Yes, I can see this coming about - with a high-speed wireless transfer of files to a portable storage device of some sort.

In the good old days of film (less than a decade ago!) the majority of photos were taken on colour-print film. I think the figure was about 91% of the market, with B/W and slide film about equally divided in the share of the remaining 9% - yet there was far more choice in the range of films for the latter two despite their apparent small share of the market, so I think there's plenty of scope for the manufacture of a variety of card formats whilst there's a demand.

Competitions will force Canon and Nikon to make high quality dslr at reasonable price. There is no other alternative for them. Of course they will make some more $$$$ by adding "bigger buttons" and all those goodies.

This is an interesting article about future of digital cameras:

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/tech/st...101432,00.html

I've read articles which suggest that camera-phones will completely wipe out compact digicam sales - whether people will regard them as a phone that happens to have a camera or a camera that has the convenience of a phone as well, I can't say!

Mobile phones themselves hit that point of saturation not long ago. Before the full-spec internet-compatible phones are up and running, though, these camera-phones have helped to revive that particular market. I dare say the camera-makers will come up with some new ideas to part us from our cash when the time is right.

The market is still 'young' and there must be a lot of development out there before they settle down to just a steady, long production run of a few established models.

We've sort of hi-jacked this thread - perhaps we ought to have another new thread for anyone to speculate on what might be coming 'just around the corner!'

Yes I think that will almost happen although semi-compact digicams with more complex lenses and functions will remain. At the moment camera phones are poor cameras so we have a few years to go yet.

Leif

i think mobile phones are more likely to push live tv pictures as the next step.the boundaries for digital slr's keep shifting.mamiya has just released a 21.3m pixel medium format camera so it won't be long before canon and nikon follow with slr's.a few years from now the entry level dslr's will be around 10m pixels.if the prices keep dropping as they have it should be good news for us.the one thing that bothers me is the crazey prices we have to pay for good lenses.if only they would start to drop like the cameras.

It's bad enough trying to avoid people walking along with their phone clamped to their ear totally oblivious to what's happening - just imagine what it will be like when they're walking along squinting at a miniscule TV screen:rolleyes:

Never have I witnessed the new trend of camera phones as much as last sunday night at a New Year's do at a Chinese Restaurant... when the dragon came along, all you could see were people holding up mobile phones... just one conventional camera in sight.

And was that one yours Andy ?

ruchai - definitely the same CCD in D100, D70, D50 and D70's. Different image processing though. And I agree, the D50 makes very sweet images, with great noise and colour characteristics. If it took compact flash like every other Nikon DSLR, I'd have one straight away as a back up/manual mode all the time camera.

The D2x is in a different league. It's abilities are outstanding. I really suggest you get some hands on time with one and compare to the D200, even that great leap forward is nowhere near it. It's just so fast!

I have had a look at the D200 as a back-up and love it, I was ready to pay for it. The only reason I did not buy one is because it does not use SD card. I hate to have to buy a couple of very expensive CF cards while I already have enough SD cards. I also predict SD cards will eventually be the only card for all cameras. I suggest Nikon should use double slots in the D200. They already lost atleast 2 customers!

Double slots is a great idea. I'd like to see Nikon do that, too.

My other problem is that the D200 need to use new NikonCapture4.4. I had my 4.3 upgrated preparing for if I ever buy the D200. The upgraded NC4 had problem with RAW pictures from my D50. They work alright but when I saved the files in jpeg I hhd lousy pictures. I know Nikon will fix that but I shall only buy the D200 after Nikon fix it and maybe also some other bugs. I can wait. In digital cameras like in computers, the longer you wait the better you will get at lower price too!

don't you find nikon capture to be a bit on the slow side.i prefer raw shooter and photoshop cs2.

It not as fast as I would like it to run but I feel it is very user friendly.

i agree and the quality is very good too.i just have to remember not to load too many images at one go or it chokes.

Compared to the price of the camera, the cards are inexpensive. I paid £1200 for the D200, and £73 including tax and P&P for a 2GB compact flash card with 100x data transfer speeds. But then again, maybe you're a bit more trigger happy than me. :D

Leif

Yes I agree with that. And it routinely comes out as best, or equal best in terms of the image quality of the resulting TIFF file. But it is SLOW when editing D200 images. Aaarrrgghhh.

Leif