The Nikon D3x is officially announced and priced at $8000

After a brief countdown, we are ready to celebrate the official announcement of the Nikon D3x, Nikon's new 35mm full-frame flagship DSLR! The rumors were completely founded, as expected, and the D3x joins the Sony A900 as they now share the thorny crown of megapixel king and queen.

Update #2: Pre-orders at three places
Two places have started accepting pre-orders online, Ritz/Wolf, Calumet, and Adorama. More will be added in the next few days for sure.

The D3x is also listed at Amazon.com, but you cannot pre-order the Nikon D3x just yet. They do have an email-notification list you can sign up for.

Best of the Nikon D3x material on the Web

• Nikon D3x preview at Imaging Resource
  
• Nikon-produced D3x mini-site featuring sample images by Frank Wartenberg, John Shaw, Tim Andrew, and Kenji Aoki. Check it out. Note this is a Flash-based and multimedia-heavy mini-site and it re-adjusts the size of your browser.
  
• 28-page PDF brochure by Nikon (the link is directly to the PDF file!)
  
• Press material at dpreview
  
• The official press release can be found in the Nikon USA press room. For those who speak Japanese, here is the Nikon Japan page.

Nikon D3x Key Specifications

• 24.5-megapixel (6048 x 4032) CMOS sensor
  
• Price: $8000 estimate selling price
  
• Japan: 900,000 yen with a December 19 release date - see digitalcamera.jp
  
• available starting in December 2008
  
• 5.49-micron pixel size
  
• 12-bit or 14-bit compressed or uncompressed file formats
  
• 14-bit files (138MB)
  
• 5fps at full-resolution
  
• 7fps at DX crop-mode
  
• ISO 100 to 1600 (also available, ISO 50, and as high as 6400)
  
• EXPEED Image Processing System
  
• Start-up time: 0.12s
  
• Shutter release lag: 0.04s
  
• Scene Recognition System feeding off the 1005 pixel RGB light sensor
  
• Active D-Lighting
  
• 3D Matrix Metering II
  
• Multi-CAM 3500FX focus module (51 points, 14 cross-type, 36 horizontal)
  
• Live View modes (two modes)
  
• 300,000 cycles shutter
  
• OVF: 100% coverage with 0.7x magnification
  
• 3" LCD with 920,000 polka dots (170 degrees)
  
• HDMI output
  
• promises 4400 CIPA shots per charge (EN-EL4a)
  
• two memory card slots for CF I/II and Microdrive, UDMA (RAW vs JPEG config)
  

More coverage on the net

• Summary at CNet by Lori Grunin
  
• The customary Galbraith presentation
  
• Longer summary at Digital Camera Review
  
• Highlights at DCI
  

Mumblings
Nikon managed to dominate Black Friday with the leak and Cyber Monday with the official announcement.

Early Reactions in the Forums

• The price is not right for some photographers. "Eight thousand!!!", they exclaim.
  
• Potential sample images from a photographer in Europe discussed in this dpreview thread
  
• who is buying it already? Confession time!