Jason Row has a short and sweet user review on how good (or not) the Sigma 12-24mm lens performs on his Nikon D3.
It was acceptable on his D2X, but performed way below par on the full-frame (FX) D3 camera at apertures of f/8 and below.
He has decided to purchase Nikon’s 14-24mm lens as a replacement.
This is something you don’t hear everyday.
Several Nikon D3 owners have reported improved autofocus performance after updating the D3 with v2.00 firmware.
And this improved AF is with non AF-S lenses, for instance with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF and the Nikon 60mm f/2.8D Micro-Nikkor.
How do I get to be as lucky as Berkley White and have Nikon deliver me a pre-production D3 for my tests?
For those who’re wanting to take the Nikon D3 underwater, Mr. White has written up an article about how well (or otherwise) the D3 fits into the Subal and Aquatica underwater housings which were made specifically for the Nikon D2X / D2Xs digital SLR cameras.
Another interesting thing in that article is Mr White’s confession about wanting to switch to the Canon EOS 1D Mark III camera for its superb high ISO performance. Looks like the Nikon D3 arrived just in time to stop him from doing just that. I like his photos showing the Nikon D3 and 1D3 side by side.
To say that wedding and portrait photographer Cliff Mautner was pleased with the D3 would be the understatement of the year.
He’s positively raving about the camera and the images he got out of it in his Nikon D3 impressions, and the pictures he shared are superb – all 14 of them!
All straight out of the camera! That’s right – JPEGs, no post-processing, no post-editing, nothing, except for resizing.
The images have been resized for web viewing, and Chris made it clear that he’s not allowed to share the full-sized samples, but note the freedom at which he must have felt to be able to shoot ISO 1600 to ISO 6400 photos with absolutely no doubts that the image quality would hold up to close scrutiny.
Needless to say, the colors, contrast and composition skills are very evident on the photographs. I really like the Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 shot. I count a total of 5 lenses used:
To echo Chris’ reaction … WOW! … just WOW!
You might also like to read reactions to Cliff’s post on DPReview’s Nikon forum, and Canon forum.
Some people have all the luck, right?
I, like many others, really wish we could get our grubby little hands on Nikon’s shiny new wonder machine, but in the meantime, we’ll have to make do with D3 reports from folks like Scott.
In this article, Photoshop Guru Scott says of the Nikon D3:
“Bill did a demo for the class last night, and even showed images shot at 6400 ISO and there were literally gasps in the room at the low levels of noise. You’ve gotta understand; this isn’t just an improvement in the noise and detail—this is way beyond that. Without sounding corny (though it still will), this is like a new dawn in the digital camera era, and now I can see where noise will soon be a non-issue. I was fully expecting to be impressed with the D3’s low noise, but I honestly wasn’t prepared for this. I was blown away. We all were.”
… and …
“Bravo to Nikon for making a camera that is just a joy to shoot (the feel of the shutter is amazing), that is smart (it holds two memory cards at once; and has a double battery charger as well), and takes some amazingly sharp, crisp, low noise photos.”
Not a full-blown Nikon D3 review by any measure, but an extremely fun read all the same.
My favorite sections from Scott’s Nikon D3 Q&A post are:
I love the ability to use two memory cards, and all the ways you can configure them. I thought the airplane-cockpit-style leveling device was very clever, but I didn’t find myself using it in real life (though I probably would at some point). One thing I dearly love, (and this will probably sound silly), but it’s the ability to use the Main Control Dial to scroll though the images on the LCD, rather than the Multi-Selector switch. To me, that was almost worth the upgrade, which just proves to me once again that it’s “the little things” that sometimes make the biggest difference. I loved the feel of the shutter button–I think it feels better than any Nikon’s ever made (at least on a digital SLR), and the whole camera just has a wonderful feel in your hands. The images it produces are warm, crisp, sharp, and I was just delighted overall at the quality of the images. What do I like least? The price. I wish it was lower, but if you look at the competition, it’s really a very competitive price.
And here’s a Nikon D3 photo from Scott to make one drool even more.