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Are You Kidding Me ...

fotografz

Well-known member
So I got this D3 for low light work. I could care less about shooting it in regular decent light (although it has to do that also.) ... most of those times I prefer the MF solution I'm addicted to anyway.

So I walked about the house early while it was pretty dark doing grab shots, D3 set on ISO 12,800. chuckling to myself on how absurd that was ... ridiculous actually...

until I took some shots.

The LCD images looked like it wasn't even dark in the room.

Did some at 6400 and 4000 also. What was most important was how these images look printed ... not just on screen. A vast majority of the candid, available light wedding work I do is printed 7X10, so that's the acid test for a candid shot DSLR for me.

All I can say is "are you kidding me?"

The ones of my little dog Schunffy sticking her tongue out to express her interest in me photographing her, and her curled up ignoring me were shot @ 12,800 ... 1/250th @ f/5.6 in a darkened room for crying out loud. Same for the Pillows shot ... I mean the room was dark.

The Apples and Pears in a box was ISO 4000 ... which looks more like 800 or 1000 on other cameras.

Not to mention that I just got this sucker yesterday and am just learning how to work with these files.
 
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robmac

Well-known member
Come a long way in a hurry from the D2X haven't they?

I think you may have settled any "Do I buy the D300 or suck it up and get the D3" waffling for some folks (hate mail from spouses to follow shortly).

Now if you could only bolt-on some R glass to go along with the ZF (and Hasselblad or Mamiya) product.

Was reading Chasseur D'Image last night (the current copy with gobs of old & new Nikon lens tests in it showing performance on a D300 vs D3) and it illustrated what Lloyd Chambers has mentioned; the same lens, especially an older AiS unit, seems to come alive on the D3 like no other Nikon. That sensor/firmware is really something.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Come a long way in a hurry from the D2X haven't they?

I think you may have settled any "Do I buy the D300 or suck it up and get the D3" waffling for some folks (hate mail from spouses to follow shortly).

Now if you could only bolt-on some R glass to go along with the ZF (and Hasselblad or Mamiya) product.

Was reading Chasseur D'Image last night (the current copy with gobs of old & new Nikon lens tests in it showing performance on a D300 vs D3) and it illustrated what Lloyd Chambers has mentioned; the same lens, especially an older AiS unit, seems to come alive on the D3 like no other Nikon. That sensor/firmware is really something.
Yes they have. My last Nikon was a 1DX ... then Canon hit with the full frame and I never looked back ... until now. This camera is perfect for what I use a DSLR for. Fat pixels and enough of them to pull the prints I do from a DSLR.

My Canon 1DsMKIII isn't going anywhere since it can take just about any lens mount made ... and it's actually my digital version of the Hasselblad 203FE sporting sublime Zeiss lenses like the 110/2FE.
 

harmsr

Workshop Member
Marc,

Is this when we all say, "I told you so!!!"?

I am really loving the D3 and the new Nikon zooms. A D3 and D300 are going with me today to cover the Nascar races here in Phoenix.

Glad you are enjoying the camera.

Best,

Ray
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Marc - any other Hasselblad lens you'd consider 'keepers'?
250/4FE which is not as well know as other FE lenses except among some pros that used it for head shots and fashion ... and of course the 350/4FE which I've not used, but it's reputation seems stellar.

The 50/2.8FE is relatively huge and there are pretty good counter parts in 35mm lenses.

The other nice Zeiss lenses on a Canon are the 100/3.5CFi and 180/4CFi or CFE ... both super sharp with nice characteristics. I'm looking for a mint 180/4CFE to use on my H3D/39 and 203FE ... so I will be selling a mint 180/4CFi as soon as I can find the CFE version.
 

neils

New member
Marc

Are you processing the D3 files in NX or something else? If you aren't using NX do so. Those hi ISO files, (remember when hi ISO was 3200?) at 6400,8000, 12,800 really need NX. And yes isn't it mazing how bright those dark rooms look? It seems if you look at the histogram on the camera as you shoot the D3 is always pushing exposure over to the right instead of making a nice version for you to look at on the display.

NX really can't do what ACR does for quick work of tons of files a wedding may turn out but when you've got a few and you can have 4 on screen at one time working on one while another prints NX does work. It is slow to apply same settings to a whole batch of files as it makes you batch.

Neil
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Marc

Are you processing the D3 files in NX or something else? If you aren't using NX do so. Those hi ISO files, (remember when hi ISO was 3200?) at 6400,8000, 12,800 really need NX. And yes isn't it mazing how bright those dark rooms look? It seems if you look at the histogram on the camera as you shoot the D3 is always pushing exposure over to the right instead of making a nice version for you to look at on the display.

NX really can't do what ACR does for quick work of tons of files a wedding may turn out but when you've got a few and you can have 4 on screen at one time working on one while another prints NX does work. It is slow to apply same settings to a whole batch of files as it makes you batch.

Neil
Thanks Neil. No, I haven't even loaded the Nikon software yet. And yes, I am a firm believer that the native software will extract more out of a file than 3rd party programs. But you hit the nail on the head concerning the processing of hundreds of wedding files. Which is why I tried the files in ACR first.

My workflow is to time sync all my different cameras and dump all of the CFs into one desktop file sorted by time shot. This puts all the images in the order that they happened to keep the story line intact for the client.

That does not preclude selecting specific shots for special treatment in the Nikon program ... which I have to try yet.

One thing that struck me with these files is that the jpgs are very good right out of the camera.
 

neils

New member
Marc

You're right about the jpgs. They are very very good and may in some cases be all you need for the purpose.

Last Saturday I shot an event which something I don't often do. I didn't want to deal with a few hundred files in NX. I wanted to shoot great jpgs and make minimal changes in something fast like ACR. And that's what I did.

4gig card #1 was set for NEF, card #2 was jpg fine/medium. 80% of the shots were fine with minimal changes in ACR using only JPGS. Some needed NX.

I had the camera set for low NR and low Dynamic D-Lighting. The DD-L on low doesn't do much but since it was set to "on" that makes me able to try normal or high in NX, if it is off in camera I'd have to use the NX D-Lighting which no doubt is better but this was worth a try. There were a few shots where all I did was move DD-L from low to normal and it did exactly what I needed.

Anyway the NEF card and the JPG card worked great. At the start I was thinking I'd get @200 shots per 4gig NEF card. I was up into 500's on the jpg card. As it turned out I got into the 300's on the NEF card. Half the job was a live music performance by Eddie Money. With all the black on stage the compression of the NEF files in camera let me shoot more is my guess.

Anyhow the jpgs worked out really well. Better I'd say than other cameras I've owned. I do find if I want a great out of camera jpg I'll find I set the X comp at -1/3 or 2/3 as the camera makes a bright image file. I don't see that as a bad thing either.

Neil
 
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