Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: paulnorheim on August 23, 2007, 01:37:45 am
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Here is the new Nikon D3
Unfortunately, the text is in Norwegian, but you can at least have a look:
http://www.digit.no/wip4/nikon_d3_-_proffe...d.epl?id=153245 (http://www.digit.no/wip4/nikon_d3_-_proffenes_droemmekamera/d.epl?id=153245)
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It has 12,1 Mp, full frame (yes!) and ISO 200 to 6400.
Possible to extend to ISO 25.600 (!)
9 frames per second in full frame ("FX") and 11 frames in "DX" (crop mode)
Five new Nikkor lenses, among them the wide angle (I quote in Norwegian):
"AF-S 14-24 mm f/2,8 G ED, og et slankt standardobjektiv, AF-S 24-70 mm f/2,8 G ED. Nikon har også lansert tre helt nye supertelefoto-objektiver med VR (vibrasjonsreduksjon), AF-S 400 mm f/2,8 G ED VR, AF-S 500 mm f/4 G ED VR og AF-S 600 mm f/4 G ED VR. "
Camera house size and weight:
"Kamerahuset til D3 er på 159,5 ( × 157 (h) × 87 (d) mm og veier bare 1,390 gram med batteriet. Det vil være tilgjengelig i Europa fra november 2007. "
The last sentence: available in Europe from november 2007.
The rest you`ll find out by reading the Norwegian text. It`s not so hard if you are really curious about the content!
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Rob Galbraith (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/index.asp) has it in English.
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With full frame and, according to the initial reports, dramatically increased image quality at high ISO speed, the Nikon/Canon competition is getting really serious again!
And the D300 seems to be nice for the competition in the mid-range too.
That Nikon did not increase the Mp dramatically, but apparently did so with high ISO capacity, is for me perhaps the best news here. For some people though, this may be a reason to choose the 1Ds Mark III.
I am not trying to start a Nikon/Canon war her, just observing...
And I hope that Pentax and the other smaller brands will not drown during the attention given to Nikon & Canon in the coming months.
I like underdogs.
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Sounds very cool... especially the lenses, but Nikon is once again choosing a strategy that is very different from Canon's.
These announcements are clearly no answers to the 1ds3 yet.
They focus on the 40D and 1d3 and should give these 2 a serious run for their money.
It will be very interesting to compare the high iso noise behaviour of these new cameras compared to the Canon equivalents. :-)
Regards,
Bernard
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The new Nikon is named D3 and not D3h, is this an indication that the two "flavors" of previous models (D2X & D2hs) have merged into one unique camera?
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The new Nikon is named D3 and not D3h, is this an indication that the two "flavors" of previous models (D2X & D2hs) have merged into one unique camera?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134975\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Perhaps they will call a competitor to the IDs Mark III the "D1" once again- bringing more confusion into the naming of cameras. Or why not the D5?
You have the Canon 300D and now the Nikon D300. A few years ago, Canon had a D300 (or was it a D30?).
The same with the 40D and the D40 etc. Perhaps the companies should merge instead
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Looks like Nikon have serously gone after the sports / photojournalism market where they may have lost ground to Canon recently, hence the emphasis on speed and high ISO performance at the expense of absolute megapixel count. You could argue that is where the money is; the 1Ds III market is small. The D3 might make it look a bit like bloatware for most pro uses.
Quentin
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The most knowledgable sources on Nikon -- or at least the ones that seem most credible -- have insisted even before this latest release that Nikon will release its uber-camera next year, something in the 18mp-24mp range, although it will not have the frame speed of these new cameras. I think that's probably correct. The new Canon 1DsIII with almost twice the mp will have a significant resolution advantage over the new Nikon (I know that people argue that there wasn't a "significant" difference between 12 and 18, but with almost twice the acreage, at 21 vs. 12, there should be.) I think this release was Nikon plugging some holes in its line-up, and challenging Canon in the sports and PJ market, where there really is not much need for more than 12mp, and there could be some reasons NOT to go higher (like processing speed.) But that leaves Nikon a little bare in the landscape/fine art/studio market, where resolution trumps speed. I think there'll be a new Nikon in a relatively short time...but not before Canon gets the 1DsIII out there.
JC
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something in the 18mp-24mp range, although it will not have the frame speed of these new cameras.
I don't see why they wouldn't have similar frame rates. If the full frame 3d can cope then why couldn't a higher res version, buffer capability?
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mahleu, it depends on how much buffer memory they put into these cameras and how fast they can scan the data out into the buffer. If you double the pixel data (e.g., going from 12 MP to 24 MP) then you double the bandwidth and storage requirements. Certainly possible to address them if they can cram the extra channels & required circuitry in there ...
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Hey, did anyone notice in RobGalbraith's preview of the D3 that it features a 5:4 aspect ratio crop in addition to full fram and DX (1.5) crops? As a longtime Canon digital user, this is something I've been complaining about for years; many people (myself included) prefer the 4:5 aspect ratio a la medium format and there's nor eason why a 35mm style digital camera couldn't (1) have this available as a crop (2) make the crop visible in the viewfinder and (3) make that crop be tagged to the image file so that the image opens with that crop. Now, I know Nikon has done #1, but I don't know about 2 or 3 from reading the info available thus far (or maybe I missed it). Moreover, even if the image is tagged with the crop, will that tag only be read when the RAW file is processed in Nikon's own software or also in Photoshop/Camera Raw/Lightroom?
Compared to everything else in the D3, this is for most people only a relatively small feature, but I think it's an important one. I've stuck mostly with Canons since going digital (1Ds Marks I and II, now a 5D) but always used Nikon film cameras and had a Nikon D200 for a while as well. I've always thought Nikons were better hardware from a "camera-ness" and useability point of view, but that the Canons had the better image quality, especially at high-ISOs. IF the image quality gap narrows, I may seriously consider the Nikon switch. Particularly if the rumored higher-megapixel Nikon appears (although the D3 is equivalent to my 5D in megapixels right now).
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William, I see the 5:4 ratio feature to have two practical benefits: (1) you can compose with it in-camera, and (2) the files will take up less space, meaning that one can store more images on a CF card. But in terms of getting the files to be cropped to 5:4 and having it look that way on a computer, I don't see any advantage of this. For instance, I use LR and if I want a certain aspect ratio crop applied to a group of images, I just create a preset for it, then apply it to all the images. Or, even better, I can apply the preset during the import process, so that it becomes fully automatic ...
I think there are advantages both ways. With the 5:4 camera feature, you can do it in-camera, but if you goof on the composition, the extra pixels are lost. Without the feature, you have to imagine the 5:4 ratio in-camera, but then you have more flexibility in cropping later.
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(1) have this available as a crop (2) make the crop visible in the viewfinder and (3) make that crop be tagged to the image file so that the image opens with that crop. Now, I know Nikon has done #1, but I don't know about 2 or 3 from reading the info available thus far (or maybe I missed it). Moreover, even if the image is tagged with the crop, will that tag only be read when the RAW file is processed in Nikon's own software or also in Photoshop/Camera Raw/Lightroom?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=135052\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
All 3 are implemented. I am not sure if 3 also works for non Nikon RAW converters tough.
Regards,
Bernard
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The D3X will be coming next spring.....I will be very interested in testing this out when it becomes available. Till then gives me time to save my pennys.
Roman
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The D3X will be coming next spring.....I[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=135181\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Can you substantiate this??
S
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Can you substantiate this??
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=135210\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Nobody knows for sure, but there have been very insisting rumours pointing towards this. Nikon rumours have been mostly true these past few months.
Regards,
Bernard
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Well, I know bought me that "Collecting Donations for Nikon D3" - T-Shirt
No other way to afford that monster ... Apparently the price estimation is $5000
Here is the new Nikon D3
Unfortunately, the text is in Norwegian, but you can at least have a look:
http://www.digit.no/wip4/nikon_d3_-_proffe...d.epl?id=153245 (http://www.digit.no/wip4/nikon_d3_-_proffenes_droemmekamera/d.epl?id=153245)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134961\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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The gap between the D2h and D2x was 14 months, so I wouldn't expect anything for another year. Nikon is a much smaller company than Canon and doesn't have the resources to compete with their development and product refresh cycles; they don't have a popular line of printers and copiers to rely on for cash flow.
You also have to remember that the market for any 21MP DSLR is pretty thin, that Canon has owned the top spot for years (losing Nikon many customers in the process), so the market for a 21MP Nikon is even thinner.
There's also the possibility that the D3 doesn't work - it has to meet or beat the image quality and hi ISO capabilities of Canon's 1D MK II (that's already shipping). If they haven't even pulled that off, the chances of a 1Ds killer are slim at best, unfortunately.
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Here's another interesting article on the D3: http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1187901361.html (http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1187901361.html)
Also a quote I'd like to excerpt:
The D3's high ISO is really impressive I'll remain at least somewhat skeptical until we can get a D3 back in the lab and test it under controlled conditions, but Nikon showed some incredibly impressive prints at the event. They had enlargements that must have been 30x45 inches or more in size, comparing identical shots taken with the D3 and Canon EOS-1D Mark III at ISO 3,200 and 6,400.
After the disappointment of the D2H, I have to say I was taking Nikon's claims of low noise at high ISOs with a rather large grain of salt. When I saw the aforementioned prints though, I was literally flabbergasted. The D3 didn't just surpass the 1D Mark III, it far surpassed it. Well, that may be a little strong; the Mark III is a fantastic camera, but the difference between its images and those from the D3 was anything but subtle. As I say, I'll remain a skeptic until we can test a production sample of the D3 ourselves, but if the images shown had any basis in reality (and Nikon would be foolish to have doctored them in any way), it looks like there's a new leader in the high-ISO / low-noise derby, and it's the D3.
Regards, Art.
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Also a quote I'd like to excerpt:
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136008\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
This gives rise to a few thoughts ...
Clearly, the D3 has a chance to be a much better performer as far as shot noise is concerned. The sensor is not only bigger, but potentially more sensitive, as the lowest ISO is 200, compared to the 1dmk3's 50 (actually more like 70, probably, even though it is called 50). If this minimum of 200 is for good reasons, like high quantum efficiency and a high fill factor, then it will be collecting a larger percentage of photons incident on the sensor (a bad reason would be a tiny photosite fill factor with large microlenses to compensate, filling up the tiny wells quickly). The Canon 1 series are not stellar performers in the quantum efficiency department.
If the prints compared were from very well exposed images, with no significant shadow areas, then I could easily see the D3 outperforming the smaller, less sensitive Canon sensor, as shot noise is generally the dominant noise at higher tonal levels.
As you drop down into the shadow areas, however, read noise becomes more dominant, and this is where Canon has historically had a significant edge in DSLRs. This is the more mysterious part. Has Nikon reduced read noise to levels as low or lower than Canon? Currently, Nikon read noises range from about 15 to 60 (D40 and D2X) ADU at the pixel level at ISO 1600, while Canons range from 3.2 to 7.2 (1Dmk3 translated to 12 bits, and 400D). Canon's noisiest currently has a stop less read noise than Nikon's cleanest pixels.
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This gives rise to a few thoughts ...
Clearly, the D3 has a chance to be a much better performer as far as shot noise is concerned. The sensor is not only bigger, but potentially more sensitive, as the lowest ISO is 200, compared to the 1dmk3's 50 (actually more like 70, probably, even though it is called 50). If this minimum of 200 is for good reasons, like high quantum efficiency and a high fill factor, then it will be collecting a larger percentage of photons incident on the sensor (a bad reason would be a tiny photosite fill factor with large microlenses to compensate, filling up the tiny wells quickly). The Canon 1 series are not stellar performers in the quantum efficiency department.
If the prints compared were from very well exposed images, with no significant shadow areas, then I could easily see the D3 outperforming the smaller, less sensitive Canon sensor, as shot noise is generally the dominant noise at higher tonal levels.
As you drop down into the shadow areas, however, read noise becomes more dominant, and this is where Canon has historically had a significant edge in DSLRs. This is the more mysterious part. Has Nikon reduced read noise to levels as low or lower than Canon? Currently, Nikon read noises range from about 15 to 60 (D40 and D2X) ADU at the pixel level at ISO 1600, while Canons range from 3.2 to 7.2 (1Dmk3 translated to 12 bits, and 400D). Canon's noisiest currently has a stop less read noise than Nikon's cleanest pixels.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136053\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
FWIW, the D3 does have an extended mode, similar to Canon's, that is ISO 100 equivalent.
I agree with waiting to see it work in RealWorld. BTW if Nikon showed you prints, why don't they offer sample images?