How fast a week goes. Just last week I said that it had been almost 3 years since I bought my S2 and that was 2 years longer than I thought I would use the camera. The camera has been a real workhorse and I couldn't have been happier with it (or the Aquatica housing for it) over that time.

I was never going to upgrade until I saw what the S3 offered, and in the end it didn't offer enough for me to upgrade the S2Pro. Increased Dynamic Range was impressive in examples, but they kept so many of the annoying things that the S2 needed improvement on. S3 wasn't enough (see below) so I started seriously looking elsewhere - and over the last week the Nikon D2X samples and reviews started to flow and a decision was made.

New camera: Nikon D2X
New housing: Subal ND2

Alex Mustard already has this setup (lucky man), and I'll pick up my setup when I come to the USA in April (which means March will suck as there will be several big boxes with my name on sitting at a friends place in Florida)

I have very specific personal needs and requirements for underwater and topside photography - your needs will vary of course, but here is my thinking.

So no S3 because:
- Autofocus performance continues to be woeful
- Read/Write speeds not good for topside or fast action (i.e. shark) work
- Green channel still screwed up. I am totally sick of having to correct green color casts.
- They complicated the sensors/megapixel setup, but didn't actually give you anything but approximately 2-3 stops of dynamic range (which is a lot). When it comes down to it, this is still effectively a 6MP camera with great dynamic range. That is not good enough when the S2 was already a 6MP camera - they needed to improve both. Fuji banked on dynamic range being more important than megapixels - they may be right but it wont help sales.
- Body is still the same base as the S2. It needed to get MUCH better. It didn't. The S2 was small enough that they could have made the S3 bigger, stuffed a bunch more features in and had no complaints
- Housing choice was always going to be limited and even worse it was hard to actually determine if anyone I liked were going to make a housing. At least 2 told me they were not going to make one
- Fuji FinePixViewer (the Fuji software for raw conversion etc) is awful and they have updated it a total of once in three years.
- I don't need internal flash
- Fuji has lost the DSLR battle. They are not dead (the S2 and S3 are great cameras), but they are dying. They are going to get less and less attention over time and I would not be shocked if there is never a S4. In summary, the S3, while better than the S2, was nowhere near the huge upgrade it needed to be to compete.

No Nikon D200 because:
- Nikon wont say what the camera is going to contain or when
- I didn't like the feel of the D100 (total subjective experience)
- If you wait forever, you never upgrade.

No Canon because:
All in all, and despite many opinions to the contary, Nikon and Canon are pretty close together and I have lots of Nikkor lenses. When two groups of people are both so passionate that their preferred product is better than the competitors, it is likely that they are both so close together that you probably can't separate them. I am not a Nikon head but Canon would have to be significantly in front of Nikon for me to switch (or Canon would have to replace all my lenses for free :-) )

Why D2X then?
- Man that autofocus system rocks. Put that on the S3 and maybe this is a totally different post.
- Topside nature 'machine gun' shooting is a total blast on moving critters. I have really missed not being able to do this properly on the S2
- All initial reports indicate the blues are good out of the camera. Maybe that means a different color is off, but at least it wont be green anymore. Did I mention I hate the green color cast out of the S2.
- 12MP is fine.
- I own a 12-24mm DX lens. This remains the best lens I have ever slapped on front of a camera. Never has a lens paid for itself so fast (48 hours after I had it delivered it paid for itself)
- Already a choice of housing - although if you want a Nexus or a SeaCam you need to take a number and get in line. The wait list for a Nexus is already at least 20 in the USA alone. Subal right now has immediate availability mainly due to the fact that the the Nikon D2H is the almost exact same body so they were making a housing for this camera already.
- Only issue I had was that I hate battery packs and another charger to carry around. Personally I would have preferred rechargable AA's and more frequent changes. I am told it will last 'most of a day of shooting' but we will see. I'll definetly have a spare anyway.
- This large pile of cash was burning a hole in my pocket and I wanted to spend it.

Seriously, I had been putting aside the cost of camera and housing from my photography business the past two years for buying new equipment, so the pricing was the smallest decision factor for me. Yes the D2X is much more expensive than the S2 or S3 or even waiting for the D200, but there are significant advantages to this camera that are worth the extra money.

Anyway, that was my thought process.

M

Hi, I agree and I think that's the road I will take too! I will just wait a few more weeks to see where the D2x price goes.

Amen to that, the cost of switching a complete operating system, plus the learning curve is hard to justify, I starded in 1971 with Canon switched in 1988 when I starded u/w photography, would not switch back unless some form of catastrophic event would make me, I am a better photographer today not because I switched brand but of my 17 years of added experience since I switched.

Regards