Nikon D3 Comments

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October 2007

I had the opportunity to play around with the new Nikon Dslr, the Nikon D3. And I thought that I would add some comments about what I think about the new Camera.

The buffer: in FX it's 64 .Jpg or 21 .Nef. In DX mode the buffer is 35 .Nef shots, something that made me very happy, and I'm sure other Nikon snowboard photographers will be very happy about as well. From a snowboard photographers view this is great, the D2H was just enough with its 26 .Nef buffer, the larger buffer on the D3 is excellent. I could actually take more shots after 35, as the buffer was already emptying out the first shots. There was a small lag when I reached 35 shots before it started shooting more. I did not check the .Jpg buffer in DX mode,

Viewfinder: The viewfinder is amazing, you all of a sudden have a lot of room, when you go from a viewfinder of a DX sized camera to the viewfinder on the FX(full-frame) sized D3. The viewfinder has 100% frame coverage and 0.7x magnification in FX format.

Handling: If you ever tried holding the D2H/X you will be surprised when you pick up the D3 it sits so well in your hands that you don't want to let go of it. That's right it's even more comfy then the D2H/X.

Liveview: The D3's Liveview is a great new tool. with the liveview enabled you can control the camera from a laptop and "see" through the lens, and pick a focus point virtually any where on the screen. Liveview is also excellent for people having old manual focus Nikon lenses. Liveview has two modes: Tripod mode and handheld mode.

LCD: The new LCD screen on the D3 is amazing! it's the best screen I have ever seen on a camera. The 3" screen is a 920.000-dot (VGA) 170-degree wide-viewing-angle, 100% frame coverage, low-temperature polysilicon TFT LCD with brightness adjustment.

Shutter: The shutter sound of the D3 is aggressive, this might not go so well with wildlife photographers as it's a bit more noisy then the D2H/X. It sure turned heads of the Canon people though. Max shutter speed is 1/8000sec, max FPS is 11

Nikon D3 Sample images

Note! This is all based on a Pre-Production D3, so the actual specifications may change.

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