Nikon D3s released

[Tighearnach]

I personally think it looks like a very nice camera. Maybe not so good to justify jumping from the D3 ship but for any camera below that sure it is.

Plus the combination of FPS and ISo will give great ability to shoot sports/nature/concerts in near dark.

Seems to me based on this camera and the 7d that there is an unspoken agreement between canon and nikon. We will go down ISO street and you guys go the Mpixel route.......

 

[GeneralBenson]

The D3x doesn't go along with that agreement...

 

[zerofourtwo]

Well if you were in a situation where it was dark enough to warrant the use of ISO 102,400 in order to keep a decent shutter speed, would the AF on the Nikon D3(s) be able to lock on to the subject? Forgive my ignorance, im a canon guy.

 

[Tighearnach]

No the D3x doesnt but thats the very top end of cameras. Im not saying its all each brand are improving but there does seem to be a bit of a trend. the 40d-50d for example....

 

[schumionbike]

There seem to be a noticeble improvement as far as noise, that 6400 ISO one look a lot better than the old D3, very usuable for just about any application.

 

[blash]

The ISO 12800 is ok, you can see the noise reduction going on. ISO 102400 will be a joke most likely.

720 video? Lame. I don't care about video anyway, but seriously... if you're going to add it at least make it 1080/24.

Seems like a nice modest bump in specs for an S model. If I had just bought a D3 last week I would be pissed because the S is cooler.

Honestly, I don't see anything all that exciting about it... no more so than the old D3.

You do realize that 1) your example shot was shot at 11:23 PM AT NIGHT - no flash, nada - just looks like a normal overcast-middle-of-the-day shot and 2) most of the Nikon press release photos are shot with the JPEG FINE mode, not the RAW mode. Shooting in RAW with no noise reduction means you can apply noise reduction on your machine to greater effect (i.e. apply noise reduction to a clone of the image and then just mask it in over the bokeh areas where there is no detail anyways).

Considering the D3 can be sold used for a good $3800 or so now, that extra ISO and FPS boost (not to mention the video for the few who want it), and oh yeah DOUBLE THE BUFFER - for $1400 or so is not a bad deal at all.

 

[dhilberg]

Well if you were in a situation where it was dark enough to warrant the use of ISO 102,400 in order to keep a decent shutter speed, would the AF on the Nikon D3(s) be able to lock on to the subject? Forgive my ignorance, im a canon guy.

Good point. I don't know what's more impressive: The low noise/high ISO performance of the sensor, or the fact that the camera can even autofocus in conditions where an ISO of 102,400 would be needed. :shock:

 

[Joves]

The ISO 12800 is ok, you can see the noise reduction going on. ISO 102400 will be a joke most likely.

720 video? Lame. I don't care about video anyway, but seriously... if you're going to add it at least make it 1080/24.

Seems like a nice modest bump in specs for an S model. If I had just bought a D3 last week I would be pissed because the S is cooler.

Honestly, I don't see anything all that exciting about it... no more so than the old D3.

You do realize that 1) your example shot was shot at 11:23 PM AT NIGHT - no flash, nada - just looks like a normal overcast-middle-of-the-day shot and 2) most of the Nikon press release photos are shot with the JPEG FINE mode, not the RAW mode. Shooting in RAW with no noise reduction means you can apply noise reduction on your machine to greater effect (i.e. apply noise reduction to a clone of the image and then just mask it in over the bokeh areas where there is no detail anyways).

Considering the D3 can be sold used for a good $3800 or so now, that extra ISO and FPS boost (not to mention the video for the few who want it), and oh yeah DOUBLE THE BUFFER - for $1400 or so is not a bad deal at all.

Really. And what noise is there is even more film grain like over the D3. Having 12,800 as a base ISO is an improvement. And I imgaine we will haer the same not an improvement when the bring it up to 25,600 as well. This is a totally new and improved sensor. I dont care about video, this is supposed to be a still camera. I would rather see even more sensor improvements.
Also inTempus which of Canons cameras will shoot that shot at that time of the night?

 

[Garbz]

Jove while I agree with you that it's an improvement (infact I said the same thing), the statement about noise being "more filmgrain like" is just garbage. Noise in digital sensors is entirely probabilistic based on a standard Gaussian distribution. It is the same on all cameras the only difference being the shape and this doesn't make one camera more film like than another.

What you may be referring to is the effectiveness of noise reduction at producing a shot that looks more like film grain, and effect that is completely lost once you shoot RAW, and any body I find not shooting RAW on a camera like this will have their balls clamped in a really big vice by me personally. :evil:

 

[Mike_E]

Coming soon to a theater near you:

GARBZ vs ROCKWELL

In a best 2 of three match!!

Get your tickets early!!!

 

[inTempus]

Also inTempus which of Canons cameras will shoot that shot at that time of the night?

Talk about missing the point entirely and trying to turn this into yet another Canon vs. Nikon war...

I said the D3s isn't that great of an improvement over the existing D3. People were talking about the 12800 performance so I showed them an example from the Nikon website. I said nothing more than the truth, it looks ok but you can also see the noise reduction going on.

To answer your question, the 5D2 does just fine at ISO 12800. I just shot this pic a moment ago.

That was shot at ISO 12800, f/1.4, 1/250. Whoever said the bird pic was shot in the dark at f/4, 1/500 was way off base as evidenced by my shot above. It's not pitch back or even really dark in my office this morning. It's very low light, but certainly not black in here.

Here's the EXIF data:

I shot it in RAW, not JPG, imported into Lightroom, applied some noise reduction (Lightroom sucks for this) and saved it as a JPG.

Is it as pretty as the new D3s images? Probably not. Is it close and is it usable? Yup, it is. So what's your point?

My comments stand. As for how great the new D3s is, it's a nice warm up of an existing body. Personally, I would be more excited at this point finding a good deal on a older D3 as the D3s is sure to drive the prices down somewhat.

 

[schumionbike]

You can see the comparison between shots at 12,800 ISO and at 102,400 ISO. 102,400 ISO is messy but I guess you can by if you really need the picture. The 12,800 ISO look decent.
D3S | D3X - Exceptional Image Quality

 

[Tighearnach]

That ISO 102000 woul dgive my ISO 800 on my 400d a run for its money!

Im blown away by some of these sample shots im seeing......

 

[fiveoboy01]

Whoever said the bird pic was shot in the dark at f/4, 1/500 was way off base as evidenced by my shot above.

Why are they way off base? The EXIF at the bottom of the photo clearly says 11:23pm, f4 and 1/500 at ISO 12800...

 

[inTempus]

Whoever said the bird pic was shot in the dark at f/4, 1/500 was way off base as evidenced by my shot above.

Why are they way off base? The EXIF at the bottom of the photo clearly says 11:23pm, f4 and 1/500 at ISO 12800...

Look at my shot.

f/1.4 and a shutter speed of 1/250. I'm in darker conditions and I had plenty of ambient light in my office. It was no where near dark like it would be outside without light at 11:30pm. That means there was light coming from somewhere to be at f/4, 1/500 even at iso 12800.

Pretty simple, really.