Nikon announces my present

It seems that the rumour I wrote about earlier was true, which means that I have found myself the perfect birthday present (providing it is as good as it seems, otherwise I'll still get the G9) - Nikon says that the P6000 will be released just a week or so before my birthday!

In case you are wondering what else is on my wish list, how about three or so Pocket Wizards, a 10.5mm fish eye lens, a very good laptop (not Apple, please, why pay extra for less performance? Its like Viagra in reverse). And two D3's.

Just to contradict myself, I wouldn't mind the new Apple iPhone 3G though...all that free 3G capability would actually be useful on the road. I would also like to attend my friend Bjorn's wedding in Sweden that month, but somebody had booked their holiday before me, so the stag do this month will have to suffice instead.

OK, I would gladly take any Apple product actually, but cash is king, and at the moment you get about twice the performance on a Window's based laptop, like-for-like money spent.

A new desktop computer would be great too, but after upgrading my RAM and getting some dirt-cheap PCI cards on eBay, my desktop - which was the absolute top-of-the-range when I bought it for for £1500 (!) in 2000 - now performs like a brand new beast! So that will have to wait for another birthday.


Post script 19/11/08 :
The Nikon P6000 didn't live up to its expectations, neither did the Canon G10. When will manufacturers take note of performance in low light? I would have been happy with only 6-8MP if it only could perform without having to use a flash, similar to the (now) old Fuji f31fd.

The developers behind these things must be whipped daily by marketers who have research data found in focus groups, telling them that more mega pixels is what the consumer wants. Fools, bloody fools, consumers, researchers and developers alike.

The Panasonic LX-3 is the only alternative at the moment, but even that falls a little short, although not by much. A P6000/G10/LX-3 with usable ISO up to 3200, and my money - along with every other photojournalist - is spent on you, Nikon/Canon/Panasonic. As it stands I am not spending a penny on any of you.