Nikon 16.2 Megapixels D4 Full-frame DSLR Review by CNET US With Rating 8.9/10

On Jaunary 5 2012, Nikon announced the 16.2 Megapixels Nikon D4 professional DSLR camera. The Nikon D4 comes with a redesigned body and features a raft of updates throughout, bringing improvements both for photographers and videographers alike. Key features include a 16.2 Megapixel FX-format image sensor, EXPEED 3 image processor, Advanced Multi-Cam 3500 autofocus module, 3D Color Matrix Metering III sensor, 10 frames-per-second full-res shooting (or 11 fps with focus / exposure locked), an expanded ISO sensitivity range of 50 to 204,800 equivalents, 3.2-inch LCD panel, and illuminated controls, as well as overhauled connectivity options including a built-in ethernet port, storage (including support for both CompactFlash and the recently-announced XQD card format), and a new battery type.

Videographers will find interesting features such as the choice of various resolutions and frame rates, including 1080p 30/24fps and 60 fps at 720p. By utilizing the B-Frame data compression method, videographers can record H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC format video for up to 20 minutes per clip. This format also allows for more accurate video data to be transferred requiring less memory capacity. The sensor reads image data fast which results in less instances of rolling shutter distortion. including 24/30 fps 1080p video capture from the whole sensor or with two optional focal length crop levels, ability to adjust the main exposure variables during capture, fine-grained audio levels control, a headphone port for live audio monitoring, the ability to output an uncompressed high def video feed to the HDMI port for external recording and display, and time-lapse video recording capability. The Nikon D4 is listed for $5999.95. Here's the summary of review by CNET US, giving the camera a rating of 8.9 out of 10:

"Without question the D4's photo quality is excellent, with a great noise profile. Its JPEGs look clean as high as ISO 1600, and are decent at ISO 3200 -- there you start to see some detail degradation -- and usable at ISO 6400, depending upon content. I compared the in-camera NR off to the normal at ISO 1600, and didn't really see much of a difference in the JPEGs. There's a noticeable bump in artifacts between ISO 3200 and ISO 6400. But rather disappointingly, the artifact profile for JPEGs doesn't look quite as good as the D3S' at sensitivities below ISO 12800. Although better by the numbers than the D3S's JPEGs at ISO 12800 and above, I wouldn't suggest using the JPEGs beyond ISO 6400. On the upside, shooting raw yields significantly better shots at higher sensitivities. Color rendering looks great as well. The default Standard Picture Control boosts saturation a little, but not enough to induce hue shifts; it does increase contrast to the point where you do lose a bit of shadow detail, however. If you decide to go Neutral, it preserves some of the tonal range, but I recommend boosting sharpness a bit from the Neutral defaults. Bright, saturated colors that are heavy in the red channel can end up with clipped highlights, but raw files retain all the detail, and in general the camera preserves enough highlight and shadow detail in the raw for good recovery in really high-contrast images without introducing noise in the shadows or too much contouring in the highlights. I'm not thrilled with the video quality: It's very good, but for $6,000 I expect wow. In bright light it's relatively soft, albeit with a decent tonal range, and no visible artifacts like rolling shutter or moiré. In dim light (high ISO sensitivities) it stays pretty clean without clipping too much in the shadows or highlights, but once again looks soft.

The Nikon D4 is one of the fastest cameras I've ever had the pleasure of shooting with, though it falls short of perfection. It powers on, focuses, and shoots almost instantaneously -- definitely faster than our ability to measure it confidently. It seems to perform every operation in our tests in about 0.2 second: time to focus and shoot in both bright and dim conditions, as well as two sequential shots in raw, JPEG, and even TIFF. We clocked continuous shooting at 9.8 frames per second for JPEGs, but in practice that held as well for long bursts of raw+JPEG, too. The D4's autofocus system is mostly excellent, locking quickly and usually accurately in both single and burst shooting, for fixed subjects as well as while panning. The dynamic and tracking focus options still tend to get a little distracted by the background, but unlike some cameras the D4 maintains the display of the center point (when that's the setting) during continuous AF, which really helps. However, despite gaining a stop of sensitivity in low light, centerpoint autofocus at f2.8 remains more frustrating than I expect for a camera in this price range and with these specs -- especially one of which the single most important distinguishing characteristic should be speed. (The variations of AF point sensitivities are too complex to go into here. For a complete description, check out pages 75-76 of the PDF manual.) Also, the sluggish Live View autofocus just makes me sad. One of the nice aspects of cameras in this class is the dual card slots; in the case of the D4, one CompactFlash and one XQD, a new technology that thus far has no other camera adopters. I've got mixed thoughts about its inclusion here. On the upside, it's fast -- a lot faster than SD at this point. But so is the 100MBps CF, and as far as I can tell you gain no in-camera performance improvements over that from it, and you lose compatibility. However, when using a USB 3.0 XQD reader the downloads are very fast."