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I attended Photoshop World last week and Nikon had both the D3 & D300 available for people to handle. We could not use our own memory cards or take photos of these cameras, so I have neither to share. Regarding lenses, I saw the new f 2.8 24-70mm Nikkor zoom (gorgeous lens), not the f 2.8 12-24mm Nikkor (which I was hoping to see). When speaking of the new zoom lenses, the Nikon rep stated that on the D3 they were: "completely flat from edge to edge".
I'm making the assumption that people here have read all the specs (like I had) available on the camera and I'm not a technical person, so I won't say anything in that area, but I would like to share my impressions of the camera-in-hand.
This is one sweet camera!!!
My first impression when I held it was "this is light!" The D2X's specs state it weighs 1200g and the D3's specs state it weighs 1300g. The D3's body is so beautifully designed and balanced that my perception in-hand is that it is lighter than I would have expected and seemingly lighter (due to wonderful design) than the D2X. Perhaps I could say that it is a "less clunky" design feel than the D2X, giving it the illusion of being a lighter camera. The camera had the 24-70 mm Nikkor on it at during part of the time I was handling it and the combination of body and longer lens still gave a wonderfully balanced feel. This is where the camera began to feel slightly heavy for me (as a non-weightlifting woman) when holding it up towards the ceiling for an extended period of time. Definitely manageable however.
The D3 has gorgeous ergonomics and it seems to have been sculpted to the human hand. It is magnificent to hold, solid and well balanced.
The shutter is quick and sensitive to the touch. I use a D200 and have only limited exposure to the D2X, so I can not compare the shutter mechanisms between these 2 cameras, but the difference between the D200's shutter and the D300 and the D3 is immediately noticeable. The D3's shutter is much more sensitive than the D200's shutter. The D3 also has a quieter shutter release sound than the sound I am familiar with in the D200. The D3 has more of a "sleek", "one-step" sounding shutter release, as compared to my D200's much less sensitive to the touch, "ch-ch" "two-step" sounding shutter release. [I'm really trying here to make the difference in the shutter noises understandable :-)]
The LCD is brilliant, and when shooting what was available for us to point the camera at...the ceiling of an entirely black, small booth/room...what I was able to determine was that in low light at high ISO's this camera is "worlds" less noisy than my D200. I shot images of the ceiling and dim ceiling lights and zoomed in tight on the LCD screen. This was the only way I could have any idea as to noise. It is far from being a valid test, but for my own mind I wanted to compare what I am familiar with in terms of visible noise on my D200's LCD at high ISOs under like conditions.
A bit more about noise:
I asked the Nikon reps if the D3 really is as good on noise as it is claimed to be. The answer was: "yes". They had seen images taken at high ISO at the games in Osaka and were without hesitation when stating how noiseless the D3 is. The Nikon reps (when I saw the camera) did not have any images from the games.
I attended a session at Photoshop World given by Joe McNally. During the session, Joe said he was hired by Nikon to produce images for the D3 catalogue and had spent a lot of time with the camera. He showed some of his D3 images during the session I attended. The images were displayed on large screen via digital projector. The were gorgeous images and noise-less...the caveat being during this session the images McNally was showing were not selected to show off the D3's low noise capability and ISO ratings were not stated.
After the session, I spoke with McNally and asked him if the D3, at high ISOs was "truly as low noise" and "spectacular" as Nikon is claiming it to be. Joe gave a definitive: "YES!!!" and said he would be showing the D3 images that night. Unfortunately, I could not attend that specific session.
At the night time session, Joe showed a number of high ISO/ low noise images. A "Canon" friend of mine attended this session and was blown away by the quality of images that were on display. My Canon friend said that he had never seen anything like these images with respect to the high ISO settings and the nonexistence of noise. This Canon friend said the high ISO images were spectacular and the lack of noise he had seen in the images being demonstrated would be enough to bring him to the Nikon camp.
The D3 has a GPS setting in the menu, as does the D300. I activated the GPS system on the D300 and took a few shots but could not find where the readout was being displayed on any of the screens. I did not activate the GPS setting on the D3.
With respect to DX lenses, the D3 recognizes them immediately. The user has to do nothing but switch between FF and DX lenses and the camera knows the difference. The D3 has one additional crop possibility. In camera, the user can set an 8 X 10 image format and the D3 will shoot to that crop. Thus the D3 offers the FF and two additional crop possibilities.
There is a new "My Menu" setting in the menu section which allows the user to establish a number of their own settings and then quickly access them when it is time to change or modify a setting. This means the user does not have to locate each individual menu item to change individual settings, or, as with the D200, hope the setting they are looking for still resides in the "recent settings" menu.
The Nikon rep showed us a slide of the D3's and the D300's sensor pixals. The D3's were larger than that of the D300 and on the D3's sensor, there was less "space" between each pixel. The physical edges of the D3's pixels were "smoother" than those of the D300. I am not technically orientated, so may I describe the "smoothness" of the D3's pixal edges as looking as if the D300's pixel shape had been modified in Photoshop with a heavy Gaussian Blur filter. I hope you are not laughing at me here, I'm doing my best to communicate what I saw, in that the visual shape/edges of the D3's pixels are softer, larger and less "rigid" looking than those in the D300. [whew!!! :-)]
The Nikon reps stated there would still be a number of firmware updates to both cameras before they ship. November was still stated as the delivery month.
I have pre-ordered a D300. After experiencing the D3, learning what I did about the truly low noise of the D3's sensor and the well designed feel of the D3 in my hand I am considering purchasing the D3 instead of the D300. Unfortunately, the cost of the D3 is what is preventing me from simply making the decision to purchase the D3. So...if anyone is reading this and is vacillating between the D300 and the D3...and...money is not the sticking point that it is with me...don't even hesitate; get the D3 and know you are getting the best DSLR on the market. Bar none.
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