Check out this post from Digital Photography School titled Is Camera Lust Destroying Your Photography?  For me, the answer was “kind of yes” because I found myself not shooting certain things while waiting for the Nikon D800.  In my head I was thinking, “I could go shoot that now but it will would be 20 times better if I had the D800.”  But this weekend I got off my ass, went out at various times with my Nikon D700 and my Sony NEX-7 and got several photos that I’m quite fond of.  Check the two previous posts here for a couple of shots, more to come as I have time.)

Also on Saturday I continued my search for the D800.  To recap, in HK$ the list price is $26,800.  Earlier in the week I saw it for $28,800.  Later in the week it was $30,000.  On Saturday, no one had it at all but I left my card with several shops.  Today, one shop called me and said they could get me the D800 for $35,000 or the D800E for $38,000!!!  Obviously I didn’t go for that deal.

A bit more reluctantly I’ll admit that tonight another shop called and said they just got in a few D8ooE’s and could sell me one for the list price of HK$29,800.  Oh, I was sorely tempted on that.  And while I was debating on getting the E version, thinking to myself that if nothing else I could probably turn around and make a few thousand profit on it myself, they sent a text telling me to “bring cash.”  Which I couldn’t do.  (Because half the money for this will come after I buy it and sell off my D700.)(Maybe not the wisest financial management on my part but that’s the way it is.

I also must confess that on more than one occasion, I’ve stopped and stared longingly at the Fuji X-Pro1.  But that plus the 3 available lenses for it would cost the same as the Nikon D800E.  I don’t need yet another mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.  So I’ve had to control myself with the negative reviews the camera is receiving in some quarters.

There’s this guy, “diglloyd,” who does extremely intensive camera reviews.  He posts daily updates as he’s writing and shooting his reviews.  The hitch is that for full content, you have to pay to subscribe, and his subscription rates ain’t cheap.  He had several posts while he was testing the Fuji X-Pro 1.  An excerpt from one post:

I’m finding that the dynamic range is excellent with the Fuji X-Pro1. But the sharpness is inexplicably poor with some images even at ƒ/5.6 and in focus, and then perfectly good with other images. Color has also proven to be frustrating under outdoor conditions. I’ve had to work hard to get half-way acceptable color.

And an excerpt from another post:

The Fuji X-Pro1 has some fine qualities (fundamental sensor quality looks very good), but at present it is simply too frustrating to work with its images, not one of which has anything approaching the sharpness of what should be there with a 16MP camera,  … This isn’t just me— a number of users have emailed to say ‘“it’s going back”. I’ll be flabbergasted if it succeeds in the market, though perhaps once RAW file support is in place and a firmware update or two passes, and with some time, the camera will gain appeal.

For whatever it’s worth, he seems to be a lot more positive about the Nikon D800.  Comparing it to the Canon 5D Mark III:

Canon ruled the mid-range DSLR market with the 5D Mark II.

Now Nikon has body-slammed Canon in the mid-range DSLR market.

Or rather, Canon has body-slammed itself with greed and mediocrity. Which is fine— the market will vote with its wallet, which is the way it ought to work a lot more these days in every area— let people make their own decisions with their own money in a free market on what constitutes value.

And a somewhat cryptic statement that I think leans in a positive direction, given his other comments on the D800:

If you’re not a resolution slut, this might make you one.

The big suprise is what happens at high ISO. Wow.

So, still waiting for the D800.  Nikon, what’s up?