Quite a few blogs and Internet camera review sites completely wrote off the D3X when it was announced late last year before they even had a chance to take one picture with the camera. Now that's a fine how-do-you-do!
Though pre-judging anything is dangerous, I could see the point of some of these bloggers. Charging $8,000 for a camera that only takes photos in this economy requires some guts. (Hey, even Nikon's prosumer-level D90 also shoots high-def video. What's up with that?)
Prior to the anti-D3X backlash, Nikon had been on a roll, with one camera release after another causing photographers to swoon with anticipation. Then along came this D3X with its gaudy price tag and its similarity to the far cheaper Sony A900 ($3,000, reviewed in PDN last month) and some of these "fanboys" quickly turned their backs on Nikon, with one well-circulated video on YouTube equating the company's move to the decline of the Third Reich.
Of course, had this 24.5-megapixel full-frame DSLR come out just a couple years ago we would not even be having this discussion. Back in the summer of 2007, Canon released its 21.1-megapixel 1Ds Mark III and few studio photographers barely batted an eye at that camera's $8,000 price tag. Some even rejoiced that they now had a viable alternative to pricey medium-format cameras. If you stacked the 1Ds Mark III against a $35,000 Hasselblad or Leaf, the Canon looked a relative steal.
Times change, though and the D3X does seem dreadfully expensive now. That is why it pains me to say that this is an incredible camera which you're really going to want to get your hands on, despite the high price. Though I can't say whether it's worth every penny—it all depends really on what sort of work you do and how much of a fiscal hole you're in right now—I can say that images I captured with the D3X both in the studio and out in the field during a month of testing are some of the best I've seen out of any camera, even when stacked up against medium-format models.
Hold on to your wallets ladies and gentlemen, Nikon may have figured out a way to make you want to part with more of your hard earned—and increasingly scarce—cash. With the D3X, it begins and ends with delicious image quality.
WORKHORSE
Holding the D3X side-by-side with Sony A900—the camera to which it's most often compared—gives you the first hint at where that $5,000 differential between the two DSLRs lies. The D3X is a serious workhorse, weighing (body only) 43 ounces with a tough magnesium alloy and rubberized body that's water-, dust-, and shock- resistant. If you've shot with the Nikon D3, the rugged chassis and recognizable layout of buttons and dials on the D3X will be very familiar.
The Sony A900, on the other hand, is well designed but feels slight in comparison. Pick the two up side by side and you'll notice the difference. While there are some who may like the lighter, slightly hollowed-out feel of the A900 (33 ounces), I felt more comfortable with the solidly built D3X. Though this is hardly the only difference between the Nikon and Sony models it's the most glaring one which may, in part, explain the glaring price differential between the cameras.
Other "luxury" extras on the D3X include a self-diagnostic shutter that's tested to over 300,000 cycles and a powerful Lithium ion battery that will give you up to 4400 shots on a single charge. I also like that Nikon's DSLRs are still the only ones that have dual CompactFlash slots which is an essential feature for a camera that captures images at such high resolution. (While Canon offers dual CF and SD card slots on its cameras and Sony has CF and Memory Stick slots, I still don't understand why those companies haven't gone with the CF combo, which is preferred by pros.)
Otherwise, both the Sony A900 and Canon 5D Mark II (also reviewed in the last issue of PDN) have similar features to the D3X which like those two cameras sports a nice 3-inch LCD with 307,200 pixels (920,000-dot) of resolution and a 170 degree viewing angle.
Though the benefits of that screen can be seen while using one of the two Live View modes on the D3X—a handheld mode which employs phase detection and a tripod mode which uses contrast detection to focus—it would've been nice to use it to showcase an HD movie mode, a feature which both the D3X and the A900 lack.
If you want to show your images off on something other than the 3-inch LCD or a computer monitor, the camera has an HDMI port so you can plug a cable directly to your studio's HDTV (if you have one) to share with a client. Again this is nothing new among recent DSLRs but the D3X's hopped-up resolution looks great on an HDTV.
FAST FRAMER
Though most of the buzz (and backlash) about the D3X has been about the camera's emphasis on resolution over bells and whistles, what continues to impress me about Nikon's recent lineup of DLSRs is the reliable overall speed. This is the sort of tech spec you don't notice until there's a problem and even when shooting in RAW + Fine JPEG mode (which is de rigueur for me during testing) I never felt like I had to wait for the D3X which was not exactly the case with the 21.1-megapixel Canon 1Ds Mark III (reviewed in PDN's January '08 issue).
In Continuous Shooting on the D3X I achieved the advertised five frames per second speed even in RAW (12-bit NEF) + Fine JPEG mode with the camera's buffer filling at about 20 shots. (In 14-bit RAW + Fine JPEG mode though, it slowed dramatically to about one frame per second while maintaining the 20 shot buffer.)
In comparison to the 1Ds Mark III which has a slightly lower resolution, the D3X was a step up in speed. During testing of the 1Ds Mark III, that camera's buffer would fill at about 10-15 shots. With both the D3X and the 1Ds Mark III, we used the fastest 16-gb UDMA cards on the market from SanDisk (Extreme IV) and Lexar (300x); these types of CF cards are highly recommended if you decide to purchase a high-resolution DSLR. UDMA cards when used with compatible cameras—most pro DSLRs these days are UDMA friendly—will speed both the write time from camera buffer to memory card and the read time from card reader to your computer.
Despite all these speed improvements, I wouldn't recommend the D3X or DSLRs with similar resolution for any kind of fast action sports. Once the buffer fills on these cameras, the time waiting for that little green or red light on back of the camera to turn off so you can shoot again can be excruciating. While Nikon's EXPEED processing engine does perhaps the best job of the cameras I've tested recently in this category—it takes about 20-30 seconds to clear the buffer on the D3X though you can still shoot bursts— there's still room for improvement.
SPEEDY FOR THE STUDIO
This likely isn't going to be an issue for most studio shoots, though. While testing the D3X, I worked with photographer David DuPuy at his studio in the East Village of Manhattan where we photographed two actress/comediennes. To test the speed of the D3X we had the actresses work through several scenes and monologues and photographed them as they moved around the studio, mugging for the camera and hamming it up a bit. For the most part, the D3X was faster than David's Dynalite strobes could fire, and though we shot many short bursts in 12-bit RAW + JPEG, never once did the camera's buffer get tied up.
The D3X uses the same Multi-CAM 3500FX autofocus sensor as the D3, D700 and other recent Nikon models and I've grown to really like this system's speed and reliability. I had some problems with the 5D Mark II's autofocus in low light which I mentioned in my review last month and that's likely because that 9-point system is quite a few years old now. Nikon's more recent system—which employs an array of 15 cross-type or 36 horizontal sensors that can be used singly or in groups of 9, 21, or 51—has been mostly bulletproof since it debuted in the D3 and D300.
Along with my studio work with the D3X, I also shot with it at a special inaugural event at the Apollo Theater and got some great portraits of people cheering in the darkened theater. Focus was sharp and there was little of the lens "hunting" that plagued the 5D Mark II in low light.
The real speed comparison for the D3X though is how it stacks up against medium-format digital cameras, many of which retail for $20,000 and up. In that type of a studio shoot-off, the competition is not even close. The fastest medium-format models out there right now shoot roughly one frame per second. You do the math.
IMAGE CONSCIOUS
Whenever someone suggests that the FX-format, "full-frame" 24.5-megapixel (6048 x 4032) CMOS sensor in the D3X is similar to the 24.6-megapixel sensor in the Sony A900 (since Sony manufacturers the sensors for both cameras), I always make the joke that they can't be the same imager since the Sony CMOS chip has .1 pixel more resolution.
The proof really is in the pictures, however. While the Sony A900 takes gorgeous images in ideal daylight and studio lighting conditions that rival those from the D3X, in low light at higher ISOs it really struggles with noise, particularly at ISO 800 and higher. Images I shot with the A900 at ISO 3200 and 6400 were almost unusable except when converted to B&W.
Though the D3X fares much better, it's a notch below the Canon 5D Mark II and even the older Canon 1Ds Mark III. Why's that? Most likely it has to do with pixel size, with the D3X topping out at 5.94-microns per pixel while the 1Ds III and 5D II offers 6.4-micron pixels.
The D3X is certainly not a noisy camera when compared to the A900. A lot of my shots at ISO 3200 shots from the event at the Apollo Theater were cleaner than I expected. It's hard to figure out with such similar image sensors—see I said "similar," not "the same"—what the A900 is doing wrong and the D3X is doing right. My guess is that it's the Nikon EXPEED processor working overtime in the D3X to tamp down noise. While I don't know if this is worth the $5,000 price differential between the two models, low-noise shooting is certainly something I'd pay extra for.
In our studio portraits and fast moving posed shots of the two actresses captured at the Low 1.0 setting (ISO 50), the D3X produced phenomenal image quality with beautiful skin tones, punchy but true-to-life color and terrific dynamic range. (If I was stacking them head to head, I'd say the A900 has just a notch better dynamic range in the studio but it's a close call.)
Exposure was spot on in the studio and extremely accurate when shooting outdoors. The D3X, like its recent predecessors, uses Nikon's 3D Color Matrix Meter II system and like the revamped AF, I've had consistent success with this system. I've also liked Nikon's Active D-Lighting feature which is designed to preserve details in shadows and highlights. This feature is great for shooting outdoors in high contrast conditions.
The one major downside to creating such gorgeous high-resolution files with the D3X is where to put them. We quickly tore through a 16 gb CF card and then promptly filled up the 4 gb card in the overflow slot. Also, when the files are processed they can be as big as 138 mb a piece which is great for magazine covers or billboards but not so great if you've run out of hard drive space at the studio.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The Nikon D3X is an expensive camera; there's no two ways around it. And in an era of fiscal belt-tightening, it's hard to justify spending $8,000 on a single DSLR when you could get two seemingly comparable cameras with similar resolution for less. And honestly, while I truly loved the D3X and think it's the best alternative out there right now to über-pricey medium format digital cameras, I hope Nikon seriously considers lowering the price. The D3X is an amazing photographic machine and if it's kept out of the hands of struggling photographers just so Nikon can increase its margins, that would be a real shame.
| Nikon D3X |
| www.nikonusa.com
Pros: The best all-around image quality yet in a studio-oriented digital SLR; fast overall speed from start-up to image capture; rugged, well-balanced camera build; reliable and speedy autofocus system even in low light; accurate exposure system. Cons: Very expensive; noise levels at ISO 3200 not quite as good as Canon 1Ds Mark III; no HD movie mode; shooting buffer is faster than the competition but takes at least 30 seconds to full clear; speeds drop to one frame per second in 14-bit RAW mode. Pricing: $7,699 (body only) |
