Nikon D3 - the scramble for gold in Beijing

Tom Lee – In the Studio

We took the camera along to Tom Lee for some real world studio testing. Tom is presently working on a portfolio of fantasy images (see the competition results in this issue) and the opportunity to try the camera on a pretty girl in a real shoot was too tempting. Tom was most interested to try the D3 at wider apertures and 100 ISO to create the best control over his depth of field. Victoria, our model (recently returned from a high placing in the World Body Sculpting Championships btw) was shot at 1/125 f6.3 on a hand-held 70-210 F2.8 VR Nikkor. Interestingly our attempts to calibrate against a pre-shot Macbeth Chart were a failure. This is something we talk about in this issue, under the calibration article – it is all very well to calibrate an evenly lit Macbeth Chart, but in Tom’s case, he was after dynamic lighting which would not play ball at all. In fact the calibration software simply told us to go and re-shoot properly – very rude! With no ability to pre-tune the image in Adobe RAW (we are currently on CS2) the Nikon Capture software could only create an image that was too warm and over-saturated (we note remarks made by Anders Ushold in BJP that the 100 ISO rating was exaggerating saturation). Again, this is a pitfall of this method of shooting – the Macbeth Chart looked reasonable but the model did not! We upgraded Lightroom to Version 1.3 to allow us to correct the image to a more acceptable result. If you compare the shot of Tom posing Victoria (shot on a D200 and corrected in Adobe RAW in CS2), the rendering is more natural. Tom was not unduly troubled by all these antics from your editor as he was chasing a fantasy rendering anyway! He was sufficiently impressed to buy the camera – 'nuff said!

Mike McNamee – A Walk on the Wild Side

We made a half-hearted attempt to test out the D3 from a bird hide. Even at 800ISO we were rather pushed for shutter speed being forced as low as 1/100s. In the example shown of the robin, the crop is just 12% of the total pixels available. The shot has been sharpened but there is no obtrusive noise to speak of.

The barn owl was shot at 400 ISO, hand-held at 1/25s f4.0 on a 105mm VR Micro Nikkor. The shot is a slight trim from the centre of the frame. Given the constraints, it is a good example of just what the Nikon combination can achieve in poor light conditions.

"…it is stronger, bigger, faster or more proficient in every aspect we considered…"

FINAL THOUGHTS

This has to be the most exhaustive camera test we have ever conducted and reflects the importance of this camera in our field. We shot a little short of 2,000 images under as wide a range of conditions as you are likely to encounter, from studio lighting to dusk shots in freezing temperatures – the camera performed flawlessly. Many of the photographers we showed the camera to have already gone and bought one (six in all, at the last count!).

Overall the technical aspects of the D3 are a significant advance on anything Nikon has produced to date – it is stronger, bigger, faster or more proficient in every aspect we considered. The price point is extremely competitive with its only real rival, the Canon 1Ds Mk III. At a street price of £6,000 for the Canon and £3,400 for the D3 there is a significant mismatch and the competition will benefit all users of both brands. The price differential will almost buy two D3s (and our advice for wedding shooters is to always have two cameras) or alternatively buy a D3 and some lenses (the D3 and the 14-24 f2.8 comes in at £4,400 leaving you enough for a 70-210 f2.8 VR optic as well!). Our only whinge remains the software, not only do you have to make an additional purchase (of Capture NX), it is then a little clunky in use. An upgrade to CS3, if you have not already done so, looks an essential part of the master plan. An alternative is to either buy Lightroom, or upgrade if you have already done so, and then process in that application, before transferring to Photoshop. Lightroom costs around £170 and Capture NX around £100 and although they perform slightly different mixes of tasks, Lightroom out-performs Capture at basic image processing.

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Photo Quote: It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary. - David Bailey