Nikon D3s released

[fiveoboy01]

I was simply taking your statement at face value, figuring you hadn't read the exif at the bottom.

I don't necessarily agree with your argument though... from my experience, what "appears" to be more well lit with indoor lighting does not always give a faster shutter speed than what "appears" to be very low outdoor/natural light. I have no idea what the ambient in the photo was, I agree with you that it likely wasn't pitch black though. Maybe moonlight? I can't say I can explain double the shutter speed at F/4. Perhaps a difference in where the photos were metered?

 

[inTempus]

The shot was likely taken indoors. Some are making an assumption it was taken outside without any ambient light - as if it was pitch black outside and the camera was magically able to focus and capture a wonderfully lit shot at f/4, 1/500. I could take a shot at 1am in my living room and the time of day means absolutely nothing.

Perhaps the argument is that f/4 on one camera isn't really f/4 on another... or perhaps 1/500 isn't a universal speed.



What I do know is that the shot of the bird wasn't taken in pitch black or even dark conditions. Low light, yes. But I just shot an image in lower light so I know that there was plenty of ambient light where the bird shot was taken.

 

[fiveoboy01]

Hey I'll still take it, you should see my D300 at 6400:lmao:

 

[inTempus]

Hey I'll still take it, you should see my D300 at 6400:lmao:

I would take it too, if someone gave it to me. I wouldn't buy it at $5100 though. But it's a great camera, no doubt.

 

[Derrel]

In the far north areas of the world, at 11:23 PM in the summer and into the wee hours of the morning, it is quite dark.

A photo shot in an office at f/1.4 and a shutter speed of 1/250 doesn't mean that the photo was taken in dark conditions--it means only that the camera's shutter was set to 1/250 and the aperture was set to f/1.4...for all we know, that's a 1 or 2-stop overexposure of the scene of the twist ties.

I could easily shoot an exposure of +3 stops and pull it back and call it "low light." I'd love to see how the office shot of a bottle of twist ties from 2 feet is comparable to a scene shot at 20 meters distant,in-focus, around midnight outdoors. One's a dead-easy shot of a pillbottle, the othr is a nature photo made in outdoor conditions. Wanna see my collection of beer can snaps?

Look at some of the bear photos, which where shot in the area between Finland and Russia in the wee hours of the morning, past midnight,according to the photographer that shot these far North low-light nature photos. he said he could barely see, and yet he managed to make sharp photos with a 400mm lens, in the DARK. Wow...I bet that bottle of cable ties was a challenge!

 

[inTempus]

I can tell you there is no compensation being done to the exposure in my shot. I set the aperture to f/1.4 and the ISO to 12800 and let the camera select the shutter speed. My exposure compensation was set to 0. I can prove this if you like as Lightroom shows compensation settings. I assume you're not insinuating cheated or fudged the sample shot.

Yes, my image does prove to me that the light conditions for the bird were comparable for the test image shot. It also proves it wasn't pitch black outside as being claimed by others and the f/4, 1/500, 12800 settings magically created light. I don't care about the difficulty of the shot or anything else, I just don't believe the bird shot was taken in the "dark". Ultimately it doesn't matter because that's not what the sample shot is all about. But on other threads people were asking "wow, how does the D3s focus in black conditions?" It's not, at least in that shot.

As for the challenge posed by the cable ties, the shot wasn't about challenges it was about showing ISO 12800 performance to another poster who asked what Canon body could shoot in that range.

 

[schumionbike]

1/500 F4 at 12,800 ISO is not that dark. That's an equivalent to 1/60 F4 at 1600 ISO and that's not all that dark. I just tested it for myself and it's about the condition of my bedroom in the morning when you wake up with mimimal window light. My guess is that the there was moonlight that was bouncing of the snow when he was makeing that shot giving him more light than usual. Yesterday I was walking around at night (in TX so no snow and no moon came out last night) taking picture and I didn't feel like using a tripod, I was using 1/4 f3.5 at 1600 ISO, now, that's dark.

 

[schumionbike]

I was at the Nikon website a moment ago and this is the worst condition they got 12,800 at f4.5 1/60. Not bad at all. I don't know why they bear pictures was taken at f4 1/500 or how there could be so much light at 3 AM.

 

[inTempus]

You're right, it's not that dark for the shots. But that doesn't detract from the fact the images look outstanding. Some folks just think that those shots were taken in pitch black or near pitch black conditions, and they weren't... not with those camera settings.

But the D3s is definitely the high ISO king right now. It's an impressive camera.

 

[schumionbike]

Now I just want to get that D3s, slap on an 85mm 1.4 and go shoot some random bears hybernating in some caves at 102,400ISO,1/30 and at f1.4 just for the hell of it. Doesn't that seem fun?? I wonder if the AF would actually work at that level, heck, I probably can't see anything.

 

[Derrel]

Go to the Nikon web site and use your eyes...it's "dark" at 11:23 PM, and it's dark at 1,2,3,4,5 AM because the sun is just a few degrees above the horizon. The photos taken were all shot as in-camera JPEGs. Look at the bear, look at the musk ox.

Nikon has several D3s websites,with various samples. The photos of the bear swimming in the lake,and moving along the lake shore look like they were taken in North America halfway between the North pole and the equator, during July at about 9:30 PM--at what we would call "twilight". The still photos look darker than the video the camera renders the scenes, and by quite a bit. Video with the D3s at elevated ISOs looks pretty good, which is probably the area that the 102,400 ISO will be most useful--on moving scenes shot with the video side and wide-aperture lenses. Video is where the ultra-high ISOs will be of greatest benefit, I think.

One of the coolest features nobody is talking about are the multiple capture sizes. Full-Frame, 1.2x, and 1.5x, as well as 5:4 or 8x10 inch proportion.

Stop by Nikon D3S shows its high ISO prowess in two sample videos
and check out the video.

 

[schumionbike]

You know Derrel, now that you mean mention it, the night are very short in the Artic summer so even, at midnight and 3 AM in the morning, it's probably not that dark. I remember getting up at 5:30 in the morning in CT in the summer and there was plenty of light, I mean everything was still gray and the sun hasn't rise but it's definitely not night time. Get up at 5:30 in the morning in the winter and everything is pitch black. The wild life shots were done in Finland in the summer so I don't think the conditions were that bad. Dark for sure, not pitch black though. The shot that post above was done in much darker condition for sure and the camera did impressively well.

 

[MrLogic]

This was posted on LuminousLandscape.com:

"Australian photographer Marcus Bell has spent a few days shooting with [a pre-production model of] the D3s, and shares his impressions on his blog"

Studio Impressions Blog


^ High ISO performance looks like it could be much better than the D3 / D700. Pretty impressive if true.

 

[schumionbike]

Hey, the link below is the new gallery of images shot at 12,800 ISO from the D3s. The is a shot of the bear was shot at 1/50 F4 12,800 ISO, pretty dark condition. There are a couple of shot that done at 1/8000 F16 and 12,800 ISO. I don't think you need to that often but it's there.
Nikon D3S

 

[schumionbike]

Go to the Nikon web site and use your eyes...it's "dark" at 11:23 PM, and it's dark at 1,2,3,4,5 AM because the sun is just a few degrees above the horizon. The photos taken were all shot as in-camera JPEGs. Look at the bear, look at the musk ox.
.

Hey Derrel, I just had a look again at those images and there were some that shot 1/50-1/100 F4 and 12,800 and that's quite dark and the images were incredible. But there were a few that shot at not so dark condition at 1/500 -1/8000 shutterspeed.

Actually I found one that was shot at 1/20 F2.8 12,800, holy cow!!!!!