Nikon D4

All the camera ports are located on the left-hand side (looking from the rear) and all are covered with rubber flaps. You get headphone and microphone jacks (a first for DSLRs), an HDMI port (for outputting uncompressed video footage), USB and a proprietary port for a wireless dongle.



Nikon has released the WT5 dongle to coincide with the launch of the D4 which will cost £649 and will allow you to control your camera remotely from an iPhone or iPad, giving you control over a huge range of settings including the ability to click on the screen to move the focus point, change the ISO sensitivity and focus type.

The WT5 unit itself is very neat and fits onto the side of the D4 solidly and features a lock so it won't easily be knocked off. While it does add some bulk to the camera, it is about one eight the size of the WT4 dongle - a device which will also work with the D4.



Another subtle change made by Nikon is to the shutter button which has been now angled to 35 degrees for easier prolonged shooting and the feel and action of the button was excellent in the few test shots we took. A video record button has also been added next to the main shutter button.

And video is something which Nikon has focused on with the D4. It is capable of capturing 1080p movies at 30/25/24fps using H.264 compression or 720p files at 60/50 fps. A 1920x1080 mode can also capture pixel-to-pixel shots with a 2.7x magnification.

With the addition of the microphone and headphone jacks, the D4 could become a very viable option for those looking to shoot films with DSLR cameras, a trend which has been picking up pace recently.



We used the Nikon D4 with the new AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G lens which was announced at the same time as the camera. It is designed to be a fast, medium telephoto lens and in the test shots we took, it was certainly fast. As we said Nikon didn't allow to properly put the camera through its paces as the model on show at CES was a pre-production model.

The Nikon D4 is certainly an impressive piece of kit and Nikon has managed to improve in almost every aspect of the hardware over the D3 and D3s but we will have to wait until we get a unit in for testing to see if it can live up to the hype.



The D4 will go on sale on 16 February for £4,799 including VAT while the new 85mm lens will go on sale in March costing £469.