All you photographer techies, get your fix here!! This is my review of the first full frame Digital Nikon SLR - The D3 is the first in a new line of Nikon full frame digital SLR cameras. Featuring a 36 x 23.9 mm 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor or 35mm equivelent. The D3 and the D700 are the first two cameras to use the new full frame CCD. It's ability to capture low noise, high quality images in very low light situations is absolutely astonishing, shooting at ISO ratings of over 6400 still produces clean, low noise, high quality images, displaying very little to no noise at all at ratings up to 1600 speed. The professional Nikon D 'single digit' series of digital SLR's started life back in June 1999 with the groundbreaking D1. Groundbreaking because it was the digital SLR that broke Kodak's stranglehold on the digital SLR market and fundamentally brought prices down to a level which most professionals could afford (around the US$5,500 mark). Since then we have seen a steady progression in the evolution of this line of cameras. Whilst the core values of a high quality full-size body with integrated grip have remained constant, the line split into two halves (indicated by the X and H suffixes), one targeted at high resolution photography the other high speed sports type photography (lower resolution but faster continuous shooting). It's been almost three years since Nikon introduced a completely new digital SLR with a new sensor (the D2X) and there had been much anticipation that Nikon's next move would be a full-frame chip, and now we see the birth of the D3, which incorporates perfectly the X & H qualities not seen in any one Nikon camera until now. Sports photographers will love its blistering 9 frames per second full frame shooting. and the high speed crop mode enabling 11 frame per second shooting at a DX format crop, still giving 6 million pixel plus CCD coverage and effectively doubling the focal lenght of your telephoto lens,
whilst maintaining the fastest aperture. Couple this with the amazing low noise qualities and it basically blows the Canon EOS 1D Mark III out the window.
I'm sure we'll see competition shortly from Canon in the form of a low noise CCD on the Mark III Body, but for now I reckon Nikon has stolen Canon's stronghold in the pro sports photography market, and I cant see many press photographers going for a Canon once they see the low light quality and shooting speed capabilities of the D3. Particulary when they can utilise all thier older FX format lenses on the new D3. I speak from experience here having been a fulltime staff press photographer 1995 -2003 and a freelance Press & PR photographer since then, and am absolutely sure the press boys will be drooling over this camera!!
Sticking with a 12 million pixel CCD, Nikon has dramatically reduced the overall CCD pixel density, a major factor in eradicating noise at high ISO ratings with the new sensor. Clearly opting out of the megapixel race, proving there's more to image quality than the number of pixels recorded and as most pro's will know, its alright being able to shoot raw files at 20 million pixels plus, but do we really gain anything from shooting at such high quality? The majority of wedding photographers never enlarging to little over a 20x16 inch competition print. And then there's the added cost of storing and archive such huge files. Shooting 20 million pixel raw files on an all day wedding can produce anywhere from 10 - 20 gigs worth of images! this becomes very costly to store easily over a whole wedding season. Not to mention the added workflow processing time these larger files require.
Apart from the amazing new CCD, the D3 itself has seen some great new custom function additions, Nikon in camera image processing, everything we had on the D2x and much much more to boot, New Multi-CAM3500FX Auto Focus sensor (51-point, 15 cross-type, more vertical coverage). Important headline improvements include high sensitivity support by default, up to ISO 6400 with 25600! available as a boost option, 14-bit A/D conversion, a new standard image processor, a new shutter, new auto focus sensor, focus tracking by color, nine frames per second continuous, dual compact flash support, DX lens support (albeit at lower resolution) with automatic cropping and a 3.0" 922,000 pixel LCD monitor (which it has to be said is lovely). Another great new feature for Nikon is the Dual Compact Flash card slotswhich can work in an overflow, dual 'raid' style back-up, RAW on 1 / JPEG on 2, modes.
I tested the camera in both it's factory supplied default settings and also after setting the whole thing up to my own custom liking, overall results were superb, but I'd suggest turning off the Active D lightling and Vignette control filters and use the picture control settings in the menu, (which replaces Color Modes I, II and III). This will mean you are selectively taking full control and advantage of the CCD's full tonal and colour range abilities without any incamera filtration or automatic contrast control. All the Active D lighting and vignette control filters can be applied to shots incamera after being taken. I'd reccomend just turning this off and tweaking as normal to your own liking with the camera raw plugin for Photoshop or Adobe bridge, which I find is the fastest raw workflow solution.
To conclude, its a bloody brilliant camera, and I'll certainly be buying another body to run along side my current one, as finances permit!
