100% NIKON 100% INDEPENDENT

How many people spend over £5,000/$6,000 on their new camera? The answer, of course, is only a very small number of photographers would even contemplate such a purchase. So you might be forgiven for asking why we are so interested in the launch of the Nikon D4s, the details of which were revealed hours before we went to press.

The fact is, Nikon’s reputation as a manufacturer is defined by its flagship. It is the Nikon F, the Nikon F3, the D3, which won the big professional photo competitions of their day in news, in sport, in wildlife… and were behind so many iconic pictures.

The D4s looks from the outside like a minor refresh of the the D4. For those sitting on the touchlines of the big sporting arenas or on the frontline at warzones, such such incremental improvements are most welcome, as it helps to improve their success rates even by the smallest margin.

But when you peer further into the specification, there is a lot more going on. The D4s, we are told, can shoot 176 RAW files at up to 11 frames per second before its buffer fills up – making this perhaps the first action camera where sporting pros are not forced to shoot in JPEG. And its ISO sensitivity can be pushed right up to ISO409,600 which really will mean you can see and shoot things in the dark (without a tripod) that you simply can’t see with your naked eye!