Nikon D3 - the scramble for gold in Beijing

The scramble for dominance of the camera marques at the Beijing Olympics began in earnest with the announcement of the full-chip D3, along with a bunch of tasty, long-range Nikkor VR optics. Nikon are well aware of the predominance of the white Canon lenses alongside the soccer pitches of the world and that it does not truly represent their close to 50/50 market share with their main rival. As we mentioned in Professional Imagemaker’s editorial last issue, the balance in other genre is much closer to an evensharing of spoils. For all these reasons, the arrival of a test D3 was eagerly awaited, although the piggy bank was trembling a little – the last Nikon camera to arrive (the D200) resulted in piggy being emptied to buy the camera!

The headline feature of the D3 is its full-size CMOS chip. Nikon have been patient in entering the fray against Canon with a full chip and, in the event, they have come in with a more modest pixel count, for sound technical reasons. Speed is the name of the game, speed of operation (up to 9fps) and speed of sensitivity (out to 25,600 ISO). The physically larger pixel sites deliver more electrons (the electron yield), thus boosting the signal-to-noise ratio, for smoother images at high ISO/low light level, shooting. In the world of advertising hype, Nikon have sacrificed the eye-catching pixel count for solid engineering sense, and are to be commended on this courage (which spans all the way back to the parallel decision to maintain the F-mount for all these years – a near-zero redundancy). They have even kept faith with their users who have bought into the smaller chip glassware. This interfaces automatically with the D3 to give even higher framing rates. Those people who also kept hold of their 35mm optics can now reap the benefits as well! There are strengthening rumours of a high pixel count camera though (circa 22mp).

It is interesting, when a camera is launched, to stand back and look at the features writ large in the advertising. For the D3 these are: chip size, image processing speed, the continuity of the F-mount, the new auto focus, shutter durability, scene recognition system, dual compact flash cards and HDMI output. Supplementary mentions are made of the magnesium alloy body and the larger rear LCD. Note there is no mention of noise or depth of field, perhaps they are too techie for some of the punters!

ABOVE: The Liverpool Waterfront at dusk. D3, 105mm VR Micro Nikkor, 2.5s@f11, 200ISO

ON TEST

Paul McMullin for The Architectural Review Testing began with indecent haste so it was just as well that the camera is set out almost identically to the D2x and D200, with which we are familiar. No sooner had the battery reached the top of charge than the phone went off and Paul McMullin was announcing a weather window, visible out in the Bay of Liverpool, from the top of the tower block he was working on. Paul was in the middle of a prestigious six-week shoot for The Architectural Review and was anxious to compare the D3 with both 5x4 and a Hasselblad digital back he was testing. A breathless McNamee was found racing down the seafront promenade some 15 minutes later and the D3 was straight into the thick of it! McMullin was suitably impressed, ordering a D3 the following day. We also banged off some shots in near darkness at 1250 ISO.

Above: The Anglican Cathedral and part of the new convention centre from the top of the Mersey Tunnel ventilation shaft. D3, 105mm VR Micro Nikkor, 1/320 @ f8.0, ISO 200.

We got back from the shoot and retired for a cup of tea to start puzzling how to open the D3 RAW files. Photoshop CS2 would have none of it (and never will apparently), you need CS3 along with Adobe RAW 4.7. Lightroom 1.1 would also not open the files (it needs an upgrade, see later). We had more success with Nikon Capture NX which opened the files. It was, however, a little slow in operation, making colour adjustments difficult to accomplish smoothly. Nikon Capture does not come with the D3, a little puzzling that an out and out professional camera should arrive with no means of opening its RAW files straight, without further investment. Eventually, when you upgrade Nikon Capture, bear in mind that the process is quite slow, we thought the PC had fallen asleep when it was actually still working – you also need to allow Microsoft's .NET Framework to install a frightening number of files before things can proceed.

ABOVE: The 2008 Capital of Culture from the roof of the Anglican Cathedral. D3, 14-24mm f2.8 Nikkor at 24mm, 1/320 @ f9.0, ISO 200. The pullout right is a 300mm unscaled portion of the image.

High Level testing The Architectural Review had requested a shot from the Cheshire side of the Mersey, looking down into Liverpool. This required some planning as it needed access to the 160- foot ventilation shaft of the Mersey Tunnel, a clear day and the cathedral lights switching on early, for the planned dusk shot. We had a clear weather window on the Monday and got into place about 3pm after a ride in a lift, three flights of stairs and two vertical, caged ladders. The final bit was quite a challenge, with just enough space for a photographer and camera bag – the tripods and panorama head only added to the complication. Once outside, in the biting cold, the real challenge began. The breathtaking view was dulled by the mind-numbing wind, as we waited for the Mersey Ferry to leave the landing stage and move into a good photographic position. Any moaning on our part was tempered by watching the local fire crews, who were practising sea rescue by chucking an unfortunate volunteer into the very rough and icy Mersey and then going through their ‘man-overboard drills’ from their rather vulnerable-looking inshore rescue ‘rib’. The view of the rib completely leaving the water gave us a clue as to just how tough the conditions were down at sea level.

McMullin got his shots from the several panoramas we took. A word of warning – one sequence was ruined by forgetting to turn off the image stabilisation of the 105mm VR Micro Nikkor. This resulted in a shot with a slanted horizon. The only excuse we can offer for such a fundamental error was that in order to turn the switch on and off we had to lie on the floor like car mechanics, it was too risky to stand near the parapet edge on such a gusty day. We abandoned the dusk shot – in a wind that had already blown the tripod to the ground, a foursecond exposure was judged a non-starter.

Cathedral Walk We took the D3 to church, along with the 14-28mm Nikkor to see how it performed on a true architectural shoot. The two objectives were to test the D3 against the Hasselblad H3D Mk I and to examine the distortion of the 14-24mm lens within a real image. Blessed with a fine day, Paul needed to shoot over the new building development projects from the roof of Liverpool Cathedral, a towering view in all respects, as we were 330 feet above the ground. He had finished photographing the installation of a new footbridge in the area at 3am the same morning.

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Photo Quote: A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it? - Ernst Haas