Aug 28, 2007

Holy Sh*t! The Holy Grail of dit cameras!

The new Nikon D3

OMG, I NEED to have one of these now, yesterday, Ahhh!
I know I have been waiting around for a LOOOOOONG time for this one. Listening to all those Canon users brag on their MkII's and MkIII's, even watching longtime faithful Nikon users turn to the dark side because Nikon was so slow to really kick some ass on every level with pro dit cameras. But no more!
Late last week Nikon announced the release of the new D3 DSLR camera. This thing is awesome! Read Ken Rockwell's review, it's by far the most info-rich one I've found thus far.
For starters, it's a full-frame camera, did you hear that? No more dinky DX-sized sensor. I can finally use my favorite all time lens again to its full potential (35mm F 2, I used to shoot EVERYTHING with that) without it being cropped down to a field of view closer to a 50mm (thanks, or no-thanks I guess, to that DX sensor).
Here's where it really starts to sting for Canon users, you get full frame, at 9 frames-per-second! Yes! Right now on my D2X I can shoot 8 FPS, but its in "high speed crop mode" which is cropping down the frame size even more (as well as the resoution). The D3 has something similar, where it crops down from full frame to DX size and shoots, get this, 11 FPS!!! Are you kidding me?
Better yet, the low light performance is heads and tails over everything else now (easily their biggest downfall to Canon — banding no more!) You can shoot up into the 3200 and 6400 ISO range with little noise at all. When I went up to Seattle to see Tom Boyd speak at the Aperture in Action lecture series there was a Canon rep there that was touting the new MkIII, bragging on its low noise at high ISO's and joking about Nikon, undoubtedly knowing the D3 release was only a couple weeks behind!
You gotta read the review, it's packed full of info and goodness (dual CF card slots??? YES!)
It won't be out until November, which means they'll be backordered until probably the new year, which means if I beg and plead (did I REALLY need that HD vidcam this year?) They are listing at $5,000, which is amazing seeing as how that is what the current D2X model is selling for as well. I might be able to talk the boss into one by late spring.... Maybe? HOPEFULLY!!!
drooling,
-DKM

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