Nikon drops a heavy hint that it's next more affordable DSLR will be with us soon and feature ten million pixels.

The pre-Photokina silly season is in full swing. By around 10th August Nikon will unveil its second ten megapixel DSLR. Considering the obsessive pre-launch secrecy normally exhibited by camera manufacturers, the question is, how do we know this? Because Nikon says so – it's official.

Our good friend in Japan, Yoshi, has brought to our attention a teaser being featured on the global Nikon Web site. An English language version is now being shown.

The animated graphic shows a pulsating red Nikon hand grip flash (mildly reminiscent of a menacing Cylons from Battlestar Galactica) and some 'you really want one because…' teaser phrases.

So what could this be? Nikon already has a ten megapixel DSLR in the form of the D200. We know that Sony, which supplies Nikon's chips, has a 10 megapixel sensor economically priced enough to lie at the heart of Sony's own Alpha 100 DSLR (due out any day now), so our guess is that Nikon is heralding its own more affordable double-digit megapixel player to fend off the ultra-successful eight megapixel Canon EOS-350D (Rebel XT in some countries) and replace the ageing D70s – or maybe even the D50, or how about both?

Compared to the beefy Nikon D200, the as-yet unnamed new camera will probably be constructed of plastic instead of cast-alloy, lighter, smaller and be stuffed with scene modes as well as cheaper. We can't wait.