My day with the D3

Friday I was lucky enough to get to spend an afternoon/evening playing with Nikon's new D3. Let me first say, that if I had the money in the bank, I'd have ordered mine already. This camera was phenomenal. What follows here is just my review from my short time with this camera, it's by no means comprehensive, and I'm not a professional camera reviewer, so I'm sure there will be some flaws, but I thought I would just share my observations. For a more detailed review, take a look at at this article over at the Luminous Landscape.

What's the big(gest) deal about the D3? It has what Nikon's calling an "FX" sensor - or one the same size as a 35mm film negative. For more on sensor sizes, and a visual comparison, click here.

The easiest way to describe the D3 is to say the camera just gets out of your way and lets you compose images. With my D200 in certain situations, I have to say, "Well...I can't do this." Or, "I need to find a workaround for this..." The D3 says, "You want to do what? ISO 6400 at 1/1000? Sure." I know the D200 isn't really a fair comparison to the D3, and I make a lot of comparisons between the two going forward here, but I'm just speaking from my experience. I own a D70s and D200. If anything, the D3 just showed me that the difference between a "prosumer" and "pro" camera really is that great.

Ergonomically, the camera is the same as the D2X (so I hear, I've never used it) and the D2H (I've used it slightly). It was not as large as I expected (the same size as the D2H, and for that matter, as my D200+the vertical grip). It was also smaller and a lot lighter than Erin's Canon 1D Mark IIN that I shot with a bit too at the hockey game.

We started out shooting some rainy landscape shots in Winthrop with my 50 mm 1.8 lens (which I would use SO much more on a full-frame camera, it made me wish I had a 35mm lens for my D200) before moving on to Harvard for hockey. Shooting outside, I didn't really get to test out the high ISO features of the D3, as the outdoor exposure was around F/5.6 at ISO 200-400, but I will say that in a foggy situation like this on my D200, I would have had to up the exposure compensation to at least +.3, maybe +.7 (shooting in Aperture Priority). With the D3, the exposures were spot on. Also, having a 100% viewfinder is nice, as, unlike the D200 (95% viewfinder) what you see is what you get. (On the D200, sometimes things that are just out of the frame will show up in your image as a result of this.)

Also worth noting, we shot the landscapes with the D3's 14-bit RAW capture mode, and the hockey shots in JPEG fine.

I was determined to put the camera through all its paces (I didn't download and read the entire manual Thursday night for nothing!) so I tested out the live view mode (a night shot on the tripod, probably the only time I'd use this function), the virtual horizon feature (where the camera lets you know if it's crooked - again useful for landscapes) and, of course, the much talked about high ISO features.

Having shot Harvard hockey before with my D200, I'd been frustrated by my inability to produce tack-sharp images, as I just couldn't get the shutter speed high enough - not a problem with the D3. Shooting mostly with my 70-200 VR lens, I captured 700 hockey images, all at ISO 3200 and 6400 with shutter speeds between 1/640 and 1/1000 of a second. I did try a few at ISOs 12800 an 25600, just for kicks, but there was certainly some noise in those images. As has already been written, I think those figures are for when you need a shot, a shot you could not otherwise get and aren't able to use flash (i.e. a low-lit church) and something is better than nothing. Subjectively though, 12800 is like 3200 ISO on my D200.

I also shot some with the D3 in crop mode, with my DX lens, the 17-55 F/2.8. I did this for two reasons, I wanted a wide view for some close up shots of players in the corner where we were shooting, and I really wanted to test out the 11 frames per second that the D3 is capable of with a DX lens (at 12.1 megapixels, the D3 shoots at 9fps). I didn't think there'd be that big difference between 9 and 11 fps, but I immediately noticed a difference on a sequence where a Harvard defender checked a St. Lawrence forward into the boards right in front of us. I was able to record the entire play, something I certainly would have missed with a slower camera.

The other cool thing about the D3? All this shooting drained only 40% of it's battery. I think that works out to around 1,500 to 1,600 images per charge.

Also, please note, in the slideshow above, there are some images shot with my D200 at 3200 ISO for comparison.

Conclusions? Um, I want one. Now please. I won't ask for anything ever again. Really.