When the Nikon D3 was first announced in August 2007, the photography world was stunned and amazed. Nikon users finally have something to brag about after years of Canon's 1D assault on the professional market. Both amateur and professional photographers rushed to get their hands on the D3 when it became available to the general public. Six months later and strolling through craiglist.org you will find people selling off their D3 for various reasons and mostly from amateur photographers that misunderstood what the camera really does and what they are hoping it would do.

The D3 is Nikon's first full frame (FX) DSLR at 12 megapixel. It should be noted that the D3x, FX 24.5 megapixel, is not a replacement of the D3 but rather a different version of the D3 targeting the stock photography, landscape, and studio market. There will be amateur photographers rushing out and getting the D3x and be disappointed and is no fault of the camera.

Before picking up the D3 or even the D700, a smaller brother of the D3, from Nikon or place the pre-order of your dreamed D3x (unless you are professionals which can obtain the unit from professional dealers such as photocreative.com), you have to understand what the camera does well and what your needs are.

Nevertheless, as a Nikon shooter, my experience with the D3 has been very positive when compared to previous pro and semi-pro bodies such as the D1, D100, D2H/s, and D2x/s. My opinions in this write up will be largely based on D3 vs the D2x and D2Hs working in the area of news and entertainment coverage for photo wire services.

Light Sensitive

With its high ISO capability and light sensitivity, the side effect comes in under bright sunlight, bright uneven light, and sometimes flash photography with hot spots on faces of the subject. By setting the camera in a complete auto mode would actually make things worst in these types of situations. You have to be in manual mode including manual mode on the flash. Because the camera can shoot at ISO 3200 or 6400 with very little noise, you also have to be conscious not to use high ISO in these types of situation to avoid the overblown hot spot.

In occasion, I have actually dismounted the flash on the D3 and shoot in available light only with high ISO and reserve the flash to be used only with the D2x. This gave me option to choice which photo to use at the end. It is not a secret that sometimes I found the D2x with SB-800 performs better than the D3 with SB-800 flash.

Focusing

51-points focusing sounded awesome but trying to manually tell the camera which of the 51-points should be used during an action shoot is nothing but nightmare - too slow. The manual select 51-points focusing is great for fine tuning in a shoot when you have time and not under pressure, otherwise, set the camera on dynamic focusing using all 51-points is the best option.

If the availability to choose which focusing point is important and you must shoot under fast pace environment, try setting it to 9-points or 11-points focusing.

The dynamic 3D focusing is a neat feature and improve focusing in certain environment, however, if you are shooting in low light situation or when the subject colour closely match the background colour, it does not perform well as the 3D focusing utilize colour contrast to detect what is in focus and what is not.

The focusing area is a mixed opinion. The 51-points focus area is positioned in center of the frame instead of spreading across the frame and leaving a lot of room around it. When comparing to the D2X, the D2X 11-points almost filled the entire frame. The D3 including the D3x can shoot in DX mode, when that option is selected, the 51-points then almost fill the entire DX frame.

The challenge in the having the 51-points centered is the needs of making an extra step if you want to frame the subject off center. You will need to pre-focus the subject, lock the focus and exposure, then release the shutter to snap the picture. It would be nice if the 51-points are spread to cover 90% of the frame.

Speed

This camera is fast period. Before the D3 was available, shooting with D2x is my choice in most situation but wish for the speed of the D2Hs and some of the noise control. The D3 meets and exceeds my expectation in this area.

Dual CF Card Slot

One full day action shooting without changing memory cards. 4GB SanDisk Extreme III was the choice I have chosen for a long time and continue to utilize this series of cards. You can configure the two slots as mirroring, overflow, or split one card to record RAW and other record JPEG. Utilizing the overflow feature, I can pack over 1000 images in two 4GB card for those demanding days such as fashion week.

Liveview

A feature that is hard to use in action shooting environment. This is why you will see very few pro would shoot in this mode. For studio work or when shooting with tripod, liveview mode is useful but the screen doesn't flip out or rotate making shooting below your eye level still requires you to bend over or get into an awkward position. Shutter reaction time is also very slow.

Sony's implementations of liveview mode and the flipable LCD screen are something of desire.

Image Quality

High ISO and very little noise is the dream of every photographer. My D3 is constantly set between ISO 1600 to 3200 allow me to have a very fast shutter speed and freezing action perfectly in the photo. In contrast, my D2x typical ISO setting is ISO 400 to 640 for most indoor shoot.

Quality of image from the D3 is super. Nikon got rid of the complex colour space configuration and just have simple RGB (sRGB) and Adobe RGB. For most generic use, sRGB is fine.

For those who need to match D2x colour space handling, you can mange this via the Picture Control by apply the desired setting profile and set the camera to match one of the three D2x colour space/mode. This is useful if you are shooting with both cameras in the same setting and want to have similar colour management and utilize the same post processing.

Some users are disappointed with only 12 megapixel. Most generic use of photos are between a 4x6 to 8by10 with a true resolutions betwen 240 dpi to 300 dpi, this means a resolution of 4mp to 6mp is more then enough.

FX vs DX

It really doesn't make much differences for the average shooter. With FX, you lose the 1.5x crop factor that makes your 200mm lense into a 300mm. What you gain with FX is the wide angel factor - a 17mm lense mount on the D3 is truly a 17mm wide angle.

Old Nikon / Nikkor Lenses

My old 50mm F1.2 manual still works on the D3. While there are a few old Nikon manual lenses will not work with the D3, but that is really not an important factor.

Summary

There is no issue for the D3 to produce very large prints including billboard while the D3x will make life easier with more area to play with in cropping. If your needs are fast and ability to shoot in low light situation, the D3 is an upgrade for you. If you shoot mostly outdoor with good light or in studio, the D3 vs D2x, you may not see as much gain as you would have imagined. Having it stack against the D3x for in studio work, D2x vs D3x is a hugh improvement by just counting the megapixel.

The auto mode in the D3 is very good but if you solely reply on the camera to give you better picture in the auto mode, D3 may not be suitable as most professionals shoot in manual control in order to deal with some of those bad lighting sitaution. My D3 is set to manual 80% of the time during any shoot. A D90 would almost be a better fit for those need a good picture and easy of use in a DSLR configuration.

The D3 is very light sensitive and is designed for low light situation such as concerts and indoor sports and with its speed and the available buffer upgrade it is a perfect camera for news photographer covering news, sports, and entertainment such as red carpet or concerts. It also does landscape well especially with the D3x.

The D3 is not for everyone. It is tailoered to a very specific market with very specific needs. I still run into professionals shooting with D2x or even D1x, it does the job they needed and the photos are publishing grade and good. In fact my backup camera is just the D2x or D2Hs depending on the requirement and environment.

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