Nikon D3 - Nikon's First Full Frame DSLR
In 2007 I had been a Nikon fanboy a few years earlier and switched to a Canon 5D for it's full frame sensor, so I was super interested in the launch of the Nikon D3. By this time I had owned 6 film cameras and 8 digital cameras. Although I didn't still own them all I decided to sell every other camera I owned to be able to get the D3 and I didn't regret it.
The Nikon D3, with 85mm f/1.4 AF-D lens
Key Specifiations
Sensor:
Resolution:
Burst:
DR Stops:
Sync:
SS:
AF points:
Video:
Live-View:
ISO:
OVF:
LCD:
Memory:
Weight:
Battery:
Full Frame CMOS
12mp
11ps / 17 RAW
9.23 (14bit)
1/250th
30s - 1/8,000th
51 (15%)
No
Yes
200 - 6,400
0.7x / 100%
3.0" / 921k / Fixed
CF (x2)
1300g
4300 (CIPA)
Full Frame
I had a few auto focus Nikon lenses at this point. The above (85mm f/1.4) lens was like a 127mm f/2 on the D2H I had previously. Being able to use lenses as they were intended for the first time on digital was like lifting a veil, not only on your images, but viewing the world through the viewfinder as well! The improvement in focal length when using primes was one thing, but the depth of field was perhaps even more impressive to me. I had owned the Canon 5D for a year or so before this, so I knew roughly what to expect, but I was clearly a Nikon fan as it was so nice to return to Nikon's ergonomics and image processing on the D3.
Nikor AF-D 35mm f/2.0
Ergonomics
After owning the Nikon D2H for several years and loving both grips, the D3 was a joy to hold. A natural evolution of that high end feel. Every button seems to fall at the comfortable placement of your fingers and thumb. This might sound obvious, but it's not a feeling that I got from using many other cameras. The logic of the control combinations, pressing a button and rotating a dial together, just made so much sense once I got used to it. Also the holding down of two buttons marked in red to format the memory card (now two of them) was also very intuitive and safe from accidental pressing.
There is no getting around the fact that this is a massive camera. They're pretty robust, but largely overkill in today's mirrorless world. I don't understand why these massive portrait grips are perminantly bolted on to cameras any more, but they still are for some reason.
Build Quality
The tank-like build of the pro DSLRs is firmly established by this point. I hear people joke about hammering nails with these camera bodies and when you hold and use this camera that feels totally possible, with one exception - the LCD screen. I almost wish there was a metal cover to put over it or something. In fact the D3 was the first Nikon to not have any cover on the screen at all, not even as an option.
Nikor AF-D 35mm f/2.0 | Hampstead Heath
Speed
By using a lower than average pixel count (at the time), the D3 managed to push the FPS pretty high. With the AF off it could manage 11fps, which is pretty impressive even today (14 years later), although the buffer would seem rather small as it runs out after only a couple of seconds. With autofocus this speed would drop to 9fps, which is still not bad for a DSLR. Even in 2020 Nikon only managed to get this to 14fps, but this is largely a mechanical limitation. Since DLSRs need to not only move the shutter but the mirror out of the way of the focusing sensors long enough for them to identify, lock and track subjects it's a miracle they work as well as they do.
Modern electronic shutter mirrorless cameras are currently curb stomping the best pro DSLRs in this regard. They're currently up to 120fps (24mp, 14bit, global shutter) with full focus tracking. That is absolutely ridiculous and is why we won't see any new pro DSLRs.
Redundancy
The Nikon D3 was the first camera to add a second memory card slot (CF). They both supported type I & II, as well as UDMA for fast storage. This allowed for overflow or redundancy during shooting. Professional photographers never wanted to work without this feature again as they never had to worry about a card failing and losing all of a wedding shoot for example.
Battery Life
The Nikon D3's battery was rated at 4300 shots per change (CIPA) and that seemed pretty conservative from my use. This was a huge step up from the original D1, not so much from the D2 series, but DSLRs haven't really managed to push this any further. Modern mirrorless cameras struggle to get anywhere near this due to the "always on" nature of their sensors, although you can routinely get significantly more than what is stated there.
Nikor AF-D 155mm f/2.8 Macro | Poppy
Lenses
All of the lenses I had for the D2H were AF-D type and I was very happy with them. I eventually bought one of the more modern AF-S (G series, hypersonic motor) lenses for the D3 in the 14-24mm f/2.8. Other than the 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D, this was the only zoom I felt could compete with the optical quality of a prime lens. I stuck to Nikon's own lenses after being burned by a really poor Sigma wide zoom, when I bought my first DSLR back in 2004 - Fuji S2 Pro.
Using lenses like the Sony Zeiss FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA (when I switched to Sony mirrorless, in 2014) I noticed another big step up in optical quality. Today I use a mix of Samyang and Sigma lenses on the Sony A1 due to their amazing balance of optical quality, build quality, size and value. Even if Sony's own lenses could match these on price I would still choose the others. How things change.
Image Quality
The 12mp files from the D3 were a massive step up in dynamic range and noise performance. It was ground-breaking at the time.
Of course things have improved since, but those improvements have slowed to a crawl in the proceeding 17 years. I still look back on images taken with the D3 and feel that they compete absolutely fine with modern image quality. The image quality of the Sony A1 is a fun comparison now as it has four times the resolution, but in reality it feels only a little better in perceived detail. Maybe 20% better, not 400%! Plus we still have 12mp cameras like the Sony A7s III, ZV-E1 and FX3, although they are more aimed at video their stills quality is still fine today. It mostly just sounds bad.
Cameras like this and the D700 can be picked up for as little as €200, which I feel is bonkers for what you get on image quality. The D600's price also stays pretty low due to an issue it had with oil on the sensor, but that was one of the last big leaps up in image quality. Jumping to a pretty clean 24mp.
Nikor AF-D 35mm f/2.0 | 830nm Infrared filter
Infrared
The Nikon D3 can be used to shoot infrared without conversion, albeit with some long exposure times. The internal infrared blocking is so minimal that you can even get away with shooting 830nm images like this one. This exposure was 4 minutes, shot on the 35mm f/2 AF-D lens - a very, very good 35mm lens for IR!
Conclusion
The Nikon D3 was a beautiful camera to use. It gave me years or enjoyable and reliable service. Many of the lenses I chose were amazing and I still use them today on mirrorless due to their high performance in infrared light (35/2 & 85/1.4 AF-D). I have recently gone back to the D3 in 2024 and am amazed by how usable the camera and its files are today. It's a heavy beast by today's standards, but my god is it a sexy design! It's still a very comfortable grip and the buttons still make so much sense.
Bokeh Panoramas
I discovered the bokeh panorama technique while using this camera in 2009. It happened while I was using the 85mm f/1.4 to shoot everything, while being addicted to bokeh. I started to find the focal length a little restrictive, so I began combining images using the panorama stitching software which recently came out and the rest is history.
Trying to rotate a DSLR on the lenses nodal point hand held is not easy without live view. I started by moving myself around behind the camera, but this is extremely awkward, so I ended just guessing the motion aand it eventually became muscle memory. Although the Nikon D3 does have live-view it's so slow and badly implemented that it doesn't really help for this technique.
All of the following images were shot using the Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 AF-D lens. They consist of between 20-40 images each.
