I am very impressed with the D3

[Stuart Richardson]

The title says it all. I have had it for a little over a week now, and I am getting more and more impressed. I have not had a chance to really compare the images with those shot in the same circumstances as the DMR, but in terms of daily use, it is much more usable for me. This past weekend I shot a charity fashion show for a friend. It mostly consisted of "green" fashions and sustainable or recycled clothing. In any case, I rented the 70-200 VR zoom to give it a try and got ready to shoot the show. I wound up shooting over 700 images, first in RAW, then switching to JPEG when the cards got full. Most of the fashion show was shot at f/2.8 on the 70-200 and at ISO 800-2000. The performance at those ISO's, even in jpegs is amazing. I also noticed that very few of the 700+ shots were incorrectly exposed, and few were out of focus, except where it was obviously my fault. The white balance was usually spot on, and overall, the workflow was very easy using lightroom. I shot most of the runway stuff with the 70-200 and much of the behind the scenes stuff with the 17-35 (often at 17mm...it was very cramped).

Did I mention that after 4 hours straight of shooting, chimping, AF and 700 frames, the batter was still reading 4 out of 5 bars? The camera is heavy, but very easy to hold onto for the whole day, the vertical shooting grip is excellent...much better than the DMR's. Essentially, conditions were very unfavorable, with poor lighting (particularly a bright sidelight and dark shadows...velvet curtains offered no bounce), cramped space, amateur models who would walk to fast or pose awkwardly, yet whatever difficulties there were, the camera did not seem to skip a beat. Overall I found it to handle superbly.
Here are a few shots:

ISO 2000 Jpeg:

And then these two are ISO 900.

 

[ptomsu]

Same observations for me...

I sold my DMR last year when I found out that there was no more support from Leica for it and that a new Leica DSLR would bring also new glass and at least some incompatibility with the old glass.

I am now back to Nikon, with a D3 and all the 2,8 zooms. I am overwhelmed. I never had such great results with the DMR and I am not talking about AF/MF.

So enjoy further!

 

[jonoslack]

Hi There
I've had mine for around 3 weeks now, and I feel the same way.

I have a friend who has defined successful technology quite simply as:

'not irritating'

I think that this is something that Apple understood when they brought out the iphone, and I think that the D3 is a profound example of this. Everything it implies it's going to do it just does, easily and successfully.

The controls are worked out so carefully, so that it's easy to remember what you did, and how to do it again.

There are things I'd like . . . nothing is perfect, but when I'm using it, I'm certainly never irritated.

all the best

 

[innerimager]

As to the OP's content, I have to agree. While my heart belongs to my M8/M7 and lenses, I believe the D3 is the greatest 35mm camera ever made. best...Peter

 

[Stuart Richardson]

I knew I shouldn't post images. This is not really my thing, and I posted them not as an example of how good my pictures are, but of how technically well the D3 renders images. If you are interested in seeing images that I would consider "good" please go to my website, www.stuartrichardson.com. What impressed me about the images, the first one in particular, is that even at ISO 2000, which you cannot even do on the DMR, it holds excellent color saturation, sharpness and has very little grain. This was my first time shooting an event like this, and I did it to help out a friend -- the event was totally amateur, and as such it was not conducive to photography at all. There were people in front of the photographers, the end of the runway was only about 5 feet from the camera, the lighting was miserable -- it just wasn't meant to create a good, high fashion look. What impressed me was that the D3 actually was able to come up with usable, if not artistically brilliant images. I don't think any other camera I have would have been able to do so.

 

[gromitspapa]

Fantastic stuff on your site. I really liked the puffins landing shot!

 

[jonoslack]

I knew I shouldn't post images. This is not really my thing, and I posted them not as an example of how good my pictures are, but of how technically well the D3 renders images. If you are interested in seeing images that I would consider "good" please go to my website, www.stuartrichardson.com. What impressed me about the images, the first one in particular, is that even at ISO 2000, which you cannot even do on the DMR, it holds excellent color saturation, sharpness and has very little grain. This was my first time shooting an event like this, and I did it to help out a friend -- the event was totally amateur, and as such it was not conducive to photography at all. There were people in front of the photographers, the end of the runway was only about 5 feet from the camera, the lighting was miserable -- it just wasn't meant to create a good, high fashion look. What impressed me was that the D3 actually was able to come up with usable, if not artistically brilliant images. I don't think any other camera I have would have been able to do so.

Hi Stuart
You were quite right to post images - they were illustrating the points you were making in your text. Those of us who have seen your website are perfectly well aware.

I guess that lots of us are grumpy old men, but you don't need to apologise just because one of them had a go at you.

Most of us clearly understood the point of your post, what's more, most of us agreed with you!

N.B. - I deleted my other post as it was ambiguous, if you saw it, please ignore

 

[Guy Mancuso]

I agree this is a post about how the D3 is performing and not how Stuart is performing. Two completely different worlds. Let's please stay with the technical for this one. Thanks

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Stuart my only concern I see is the highlights are teetering on being blown. Are you using any recovery in these or pretty much straight out of the can.

 

[jonoslack]

Stuart my only concern I see is the highlights are teetering on being blown. Are you using any recovery in these or pretty much straight out of the can.

I think everyone agrees that the D3, by default, pitches the histogram very far to the right.

In fact, there is so much recovery available that you can easily get any blown highlights back - I guess the intention is to limit noise in the shadows (unnecessary as there doesn't seem to be any!).

I've corrected my base exposure in the menus to -0.6 of a stop, which gives me more what I want, but there's so much leeway, and the matrix metering is almost impossible to fool, that it's really quite difficult to get one wrong.

 

[Stuart Richardson]

Thank you guys.

Guy -- the images were jpegs, so I did not apply much recovery (it does not look that great when used on a jpeg). I tried to walk the line between shadow detail and highlight detail, but with a 8 bit jpeg at high iso, dynamic range is not what it is with the 14bit raw. I will see if I can fetch the unmodified jpeg out of the camera to give you an idea what they looked like with no correction. I was applying a -.7 exposure correction, because the dark purple curtain was tricking the camera into overexposing.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Thank you guys.

Guy -- the images were jpegs, so I did not apply much recovery (it does not look that great when used on a jpeg). I tried to walk the line between shadow detail and highlight detail, but with a 8 bit jpeg at high iso, dynamic range is not what it is with the 14bit raw. I will see if I can fetch the unmodified jpeg out of the camera to give you an idea what they looked like with no correction. I was applying a -.7 exposure correction, because the dark purple curtain was tricking the camera into overexposing.

I had a feeling it was jpeg . In raw you can certainly recover. thanks

 

[robmac]

jonoslack "Hi There
I've had mine for around 3 weeks now, and I feel the same way.

I have a friend who has defined successful technology quite simply as:

'not irritating'

I think that this is something that Apple understood when they brought out the iphone, and I think that the D3 is a profound example of this. Everything it implies it's going to do it just does, easily and successfully."
---------

I love that quote - and example. Perfect. Apple's 'got it', Nikon's (now) 'got it', the rest.... well, lets just (charitably) assume they're 'working on it' while some just don't have a hope in hell - they don't even know what 'it' is.

Stuart/Jono: Would love to hear any D3 comparisons in workflow re: USM, etc., vs. the 5D & 1Ds2 if you've had the opportunity to shoot either. Also, would like to hear how accurate folks have found the D3's focus confirm. The D300 I tried with a 35/2 ZF was frackin' useless.

Stuart - I hear you on posting shots, there's always someone, for some reason, somewhere. That said, please keep the contribution coming.

 

[Stuart Richardson]

I agree, I think "not irritating" is a very good way to describe it. It just does its job. While I don't think the lenses put out images as beautiful as some Leica lenses, they seem to do quite well. The lens I have been using for portraiture is the 105mm f/2 DC and I must say that is is lovely. I am interested in the Zeiss 100mm, but at the price it is at and not having autofocus or the DC control...it just was not as tempting to me. I would love to try it though. The 70-200mm f/2.8 VR zoom is really nice, but it is very large. It balances well, but I would rather have a prime 100mm and 180/200mm in these focal lengths. I don't often shoot much longer than 100mm. But for the fashion show it was brilliant -- the zoom really helped. To be honest though, in the place I was in, a 50-300mm would have done the job better. Hahahaha.

Rob -- I have used the 5D, but not extensively. I haven't used the 1Ds2. While I like the smaller size of the 5D, I find it much fussier to use. In particular, the on/off button drives me crazy. Why can't it be next to the shutter release like every other camera? In terms of images, I like the white balance and color balance on the DMR and D3 better than the 5D except in mixed lighting, where the 5d clearly outdoes the DMR, though it is still behind the D3. The LCD on the D3 is a huge improvement over the 5D as well...pictures will look soft and muddy on the 5D screen that are very sharp when you open them. The D3 screen is very much what you see is what you get. I underestimated how useful that is.

As for focus confirm...I have not really played with it yet. The only lenses I have are AF, and for those it seems to be spot on in most cases. The only lens that I am not sure about is the 105mm...in testing the focus point seems to be about an inch behind what I focused on, yet the AF fine tune does not seem to make much difference. But in real life it seems to be spot on. It's very strange. I need to use it some more in real life to see if it really is off or if my way of testing is screwy...I have a feeling that the focus area is not the same size as the brackets indicate...

Ok, so this is the stock, unmodified jpeg from the camera. All I did was convert it to sRGB (from Adobe), and resize it. Noise reduction was set to low in camera, and the picture was "standard". ISO 2000, f/4, 1/160th, -.67 exp, 70-200mm at 70mm.

It looks pretty similar to my edit....I was tired, I am sure I could have done better...it looks like all I did was crop...

 

[Jack]

Had to make some admin edits to this thread. So folks, let's keep it on topic and POLITE per our mission statement.

Stuart, thank you for posting these images illustrating the performance of the camera. It is a service to the group that you took the time to do so and we definitely appreciate it!

:thumbs:,

 

[jonoslack]

Had to make some admin edits to this thread. So folks, let's keep it on topic and POLITE per our mission statement.

Stuart, thank you for posting these images illustrating the performance of the camera. It is a service to the group that you took the time to do so and we definitely appreciate it!

:thumbs:,

Wow - what a tough guy

I Quite agree though - much better like this!
:clap::clap:

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Ah he is a pussycat. Just looks tough

 

[robmac]

Well done Jack.

Stuart - on my way out the door, so only have time now for a quick glance at your post, but thank you. I agree on Canon re: the on/off placement - am used to Nikon where a flip of the finger powers on the camera and has it poised over the shutter in same instant.

I'll get a chance to look over you post in more detail later. BTW for amateur models, they seemed to 'carry it off' well. Not that a married man like myself noticed such things of course...

 

[ptomsu]

The longer I use the D3, the more impressed I am as well. And I know I am maybe using only 20% of that cameras capabilities

 

[woodyspedden]

Ah he is a pussycat. Just looks tough

Guy

At his size he can look any way he wants to!!!LOL

Woody