It's going to be an interesting Nikon year

Thom Hogan published this on the 26th of january.

• D3100. Nikon's entry DSLR until late 2011 or more probably early 2012.
• D5000. No longer in production, some still in the sales channel. A strong candidate for replacement in the first half of the year.
• D7000. Still in short supply and should remain Nikon's top consumer DSLR until at least summer of 2012.
• D300s. No longer in production, many still in the sales channel. A strong candidate for replacement between now and September.
• D700. Approaching three years old. A strong candidate for replacement in the first half of the year.
• D3s. Will be replaced by the D4 in August.
• D3x. Probably obsoleted by the D4 in August, but not certain.

Now I know Thom a bit, nice guy, good photographer, writes extremely well and has, in my opinion, perhaps the best outsider view on Nikon.

Interesting for the foreseeable future:

D5000: Bit of an outsider in the current lineup. The D3100 is an impressive competitor for this camera, only real thing the D5000 has going for it over the D3100 is the foldout screen. If this is sold out that leaves a big gap between the D3100 and the D7000. Will Nikon fill that gap? Everyone expects them to but I still have doubts.

D300s: The workhorse for the serious amateur and a good backup body for a lot of pros. The D7000 rivals it on a lot of features except build and AF. When a camera in this class is due for replacement we tend to get rumours fairly early on. I've not heard anything credible yet. So either Nikon is keeping it close to the chest and there's a lot of them still in channels or they expect the D7000 to keep that niche for a little while.

D700: Rumours of a successor have been going around for at least a year. Not the volume product the D300s was but a very vocal minority is yelling for a replacement. My instict is that this is the next camera we will see.

Lenses
Tricky to predict.

• some sort of 80-400 replacement, likely to be just a bit different and featuring AF-S and VR and a hefty pricetag.
• Probably another high-end expensive prime or two.
• A 300mm f4 AF-S with VR is almost a certainty, I've had a Nikon rep admit as much to me personally.
  
• A DX budget priced surprise. The 35mm f1.8 did extremely well, the 85mm f3.5 micro sells decently. One of the most common complaints from the first time buyer is that the 50mm f1.8 lacks autofocus on the baby Nikons.

Flashes
With the SB-700 and SB-900 in the lineup I don't expect anything new there.