Full Review

The Nikon D3 is an amazing camera, especially for sports photography. The D3 produces photos at ISO 6,400 with noise comparable to ISO 400, that's five times the light sensitivity with no decline in quality. How about this: low to moderate grain photos at ISO 25,600! Now consider shooting at upto 9 frames per second! The D3 enables me to take high quality basketball photos (finally) in poorly lit high school gyms without strobes. No more hard shadows from a flash and dark backgrounds. No more blurred action shots from slow shutter speeds. No more missed shots waiting for the flash to charge. I've gone from typically shooting with flash at 1/200 at f4 and 1 frame per 2 seconds: to shooting 1/500 at f4 and 9 frames per second. And the color is beautiful. If you're a Nikon user now you'll like the fact that the learning curve is low. I traded up from the D70s and was pleased at how transferable my knowledge of that camera was to the D3. You'll want to know that this camera shoots FX full frame (old 35mm dimensions), also in 5:4, and DX. The view finder "mutes" the unused portion of the sensor depending on the format selected. There are three focus modes: one which actually tracks dynamically based on skin tone. There are three meter modes. The preview monitor is very nice it is large at 3 inch and Hi-Def so you really a get a excellent idea of what you're end photo will look like. You may encounter difficulty getting one due to high demand. What I did was went to Nikon USA's website and started looking for an authorized dealer by entering zip codes for low population areas that I knew of, then I started calling, many dealers put me on a list without a deposit, 30-40 dealers later I found the D3 in upstate New York and slightly below retail. Dave Black, Sports Illustrated photographer for over 25 years does a much better job at reviewing this wonderful camera in his Nov-07 and Dec-07 "Workshop at the Ranch" (Google: Dave Black Workshop D3. Wedding photographers may want to Google: Cliff Mautner D3)