Showers of April rumors bring flowering of May dSLRs?
Given that the timing is right for manufacturers to update various models, it should come as no surprise that the rumors are leaking left and right--especially at sites whose stock-in-trade is tracking these types of rumors.
According to the Canon Rumors blogger, "If this is real, I'll eat a worm."
(Credit: lpazxxsh/Fred Miranda forums)My favorite of the moment is over at Canon Rumors, which repeats info suggested in the forums at Fred Miranda. A favorite not because I think the specs are particularly accurate--a full frame 16-megapixel sensor, or maybe 18 megapixels, HD video, 12fps burst, 65-zone metering, 48 AF points (think the AF will get fewer complaints with all those points?), better viewfinder and built-in Wi-Fi--but because the blogger on Canon Rumors said that if the accompanying photo was real he'd "eat a worm."
Last week, Nikon Rumors posted a couple of (most likely faux) photos and specs for a D400 and D750. Most notably, if they're true, are 16- to 18-megapixel sensors, Vari-angle LCDs and 24fps 1080p video. While the blogger doubts their veracity, he did not volunteer to eat a worm.
Next on the rumor trail is the Sony Alpha DSLR-A500, which comes to us from Photogenius, a Russian site, via Google Translate and the Panasonic and Olympus rumor site, 43rumors.com. It sounds as if the A500 replaces the A350 or possibly the older A700, with a 17.2-megapixel sensor of indeterminate type, 1080p HD video, max ISO 12,800, 4fps burst and a 2.7-inch tilting LCD.
And finally, winning points for utter vagueness, is the rumor about a new dSLR spotted on a Pentax family group shot watermarked ivyjopy.spaces.live.com that RiceHigh's Pentax Blog says is a K7D. Or maybe a K30D (more likely, in my opinion). One of the forum participants speculates that the camera will use a Relay Finder viewfinder--as far as I can tell, it uses lenses in addition to the prism in order to shrink the viewfinder while maintaining magnification and eye point--which Pentax patented back in September.
Senior Editor Lori Grunin has been covering digital imaging for two decades, but her memory's kind of sketchy on the details. You can hear about it every week on Indecent Exposure, the podcast she co-hosts with Matt Fitzgerald. 
Buy what you want now, buying what you can afford, factoring in what you tend to shoot and what lenses you may want to add to the system in the future. You would be surprised how easy it is to sell a digital SLR on Craigslist and upgrade to a newer model in a few years. Just as that $1,500 computer you bought a year ago is "disposable" in that you got your productivity out of it (you didn't just play games on it did you?), we are not "married" to our digital SLRs like we were to 35mm SLRs which we expected to last 20-50 years.
Yes I am a Nikon user since 1976 and am using Nikkor lenses from 1965 on my two year old Nikon D300).
Craig Knapp