Six-digit sensitivity and 720p grace Nikon D3 update

Budget for a smaller turkey this Thanksgiving; you'll need to save your pennies if you want to upgrade to Nikon's latest pro dSLR when it ships at the end of November. With a few substantial changes that should appeal to nighttime shooters or the video-inclined pro, packed into the old D3 body, the slightly more expensive D3S seems like it'll be a decent successor.

Nikon D3S photos

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Though it retains the same 12.1-megapixel resolution and 8.45-micron pixels of its predecessor, the D3S uses a new sensor. Combined with updated image-processing firmware, Nikon manages to eke out sensitivity of up to ISO 102,400 (Hi 3), for a whopping 10-stop sensitivity range. How much of that will be usable? Well, the D3's looked pretty good as high as ISO 12,800--formerly Hi 1 and the new top of the standard range--and given the tweaks it should at least gain another usable couple of stops, which is worthwhile in itself. I saw some prints from Hi 3 shots taken with a preproduction model, and they looked pretty serviceable for emergency shooting in the dark.

The other major enhancement is support for Nikon's 24fps, 720p video implementation, which allows for shooting with sensitivities up to ISO 6400, shutter and aperture adjustments in preview mode and selectable sound levels. Like most models it has a built in mono mic, though it has a minijack for stereo audio. Plus Nikon supplies some postprocessing for trimming video and extracting frames.

One of the biggest complaints about dSLR-based video is the rolling shutter artifacts, which tend to be more pronounced at the 24fps frame rate Nikon uses over Canon's 30fps. Nikon claims it's tweaked the video processing to reduce the artifacts by half.

As you can see, there aren't a lot of spec differences between the D3S, the disappearing D3 and the current top-of-Nikon's-line D3X:

There are a few subtle differences in the D3S as well. Nikon increased the buffer memory to significantly boost burst depth, added sensor vibration to its dust reduction system, inserted a DX crop mode, and incorporated the same Quiet shutter release mode that debuted in the D300s. There are also more custom settings banks (to accommodate movie settings, if memory serves) which now support saved shutter speed and aperture values--a small thing, but nevertheless one of my pet peeves with the Nikon models.

Rumors abound for the D3S's main competitor, the next Canon pro model, speculatively named 1D Mark 4 (Mark IV?), but I put more credence in the Q1 2010 prognostications than the ones for next week. It's quite possibly Canon's turn to leapfrog Nikon in the neverending game. But for now, the D3S looks like it stacks up pretty well compared to what's currently available. Of course, there's also that huge price differential to consider:

In theory, it looks like there's something here to float everyone's boat: if you're not into video, there's still the low-light shooting. Or if you're so inclined, start looking for deals on used D3s. (That's D3 plural, not D3S. Oh, fun Googling for this one.) I'm certainly looking forward to trying it out.