The Nikon D3

Well what can I say about the D3 that hasn’t already been said? This is one amazing camera that opens up a new era in photographic possibilities. (Has anyone said that yet?) When announced I felt that the files I was getting from my D2s were just fine and perhaps I would skip this upgrade cycle and wait for the next D series camera. Then those camera peddling guys at Nikon loaned me a D3 and I was hooked. The quality of the files speaks for themselves, they are truly amazing and the enhancements over the D2 make this a far superior camera in every way. The new focus system has to be use to be believed, acquisition is super fast and tracking works better than any other camera I have used. The tracking is so good in fact it makes it hard to delete a series of images when taken in burst mode when they are all tack sharp.

Some of the other highlights of the D3 for me are the new Scene Recognition System (SRS) with an improved 1,005-Pixel 3DColor Matrix Metering II, this provides even more intelligent exposure capabilities and smarter auto white balance detection. The new Picture Control System is a winner to. I can only compare this with selecting different film types for different events. You can set the saturation, contrast and even the sharpness, for different occasions making for better images straight out of the camera.

Physically the body is very similar to the D2 series with the main changes being the huge viewfinder. It is the best viewfinder on a SLR ever. With first impressions counting for so much, it was the huge bright viewfinder with loads more information inside that first lured me towards purchasing the D3 this was about five seconds after I opened the box. (The length of time it took to attach a lens.) Other minor modifications are still well thought out and useful like the built in spirit level (awesome) and the new flash sync and 10 pin remote covers that are much easier to get on and off than the old screw in versions.

So yes this is one amazing camera and a huge step forward in digital photography technology. The only cons that I have with this camera is the focus points are a little too centred, they don’t quite reach to the rule of thirds points in the frame and when shooting looking straight down (often done when shooting rock climbing, cannot think when most folk would shoot in this position???) it is easy to trigger the lens release mechanism, not a good thing when hanging from a rope a few hundred meters off the ground with your subject directly below you. These two little flaws are very minor and do not affect the end result and that is beautiful image files.