Moose News Blog

Our last evening was spent at the Old Mission Lighthouse. It was a delightful evening as we worked the area which included forests and beaches, old log cabins, squirrels and bats. The D3 had to go back home, so I was in a photographic frump but I was able to make a couple of images I really liked, like the fence photo above. This is simple shot which was just converted into B&W using CS3.

While the pounding of our blog has slowed down, emails in regard to the D3 haven’t. I want to thank all who have sent emails thanking me for the little information I’ve been able to post on the D3. It was a privilege extended to me by Nikon to shoot the D3 so early on in its prerelease. Can’t thank them enough for the opportunity, it’s a great camera. The images I shot and I was able to posted here are from processed Nef files so I could see just how gorgeous the files truly are. Here’s a simple example of that.

I had no means of mounting the D3 on a tripod, simply no plates. To shoot in the forest in the very dim light, I cranked up the ISO of the D3 to 800 (which I never do) just so I could shoot at 1/15 of a second. When I went through the mornings images later on the computer, I had totally forgotten I had shot at ISO800 until I was in NX and only than, after seeing the meta data did I remember. I couldn’t tell by looking at the images, there was no noise structure hinting at shooting at a high ISO. More importantly to me though was how well the D3 handled recording the very subtle changes in the greens in the forest (at this high ISO) as that was what I was after. It’s called photography, solving problems to visually communicate the passion your feel at the time of the click and the D3 does it so very well.

I’m a photographer and as such, I create images based on my emotional response to the scene and through my photography, try to draw the same emotional response from the viewer of my image. The amazing nuisances of detail the D3 captures aren’t going to be seen here in these small files posted on the blog (and I’m truly sorry for that). The very subtle color grads that the D3 can record that the D2Xs doesn’t is what’s important for me to discover in my first shooting of the D3 (and it does just that). The D3’s ability to pull in highlight detail beyond the traditional 5stops was important to explore and exploit (and it does that too). The amazing, just bloody amazing sharpness of the D3 files were enough to make me ecstatic beyond belief and something I had to really explore. The detail in feathers (even if they were just gulls) the D3 captures just blew me off my chair!

I am a photographer, first and foremost. My shooting with the D3 was for MY photography. It had to be since that’s the only measuring stick that is meaningful to me. I was very, very, very fortunate to first, have the D3 to shoot with and than at the same time, have it to shoot with when I was my good bud Joe McNally who has had extensive time shooting with the D3. He made it possible for me to instantly and with knowledge, jump right into MY style of photography with the D3. I want to thank those who emailed me understanding this and were able to take what morels I can post at this time and use it in their own photography! It’s my desire to provide you the same help I was fortunate to have shooting with Joe McNally by my side with what we’ll post in the future on our website about the amazing D3.

Photo captured by D2Xs, 105VR on Lexar digital film

What a great morning! We spent it at Torch River Pathway and saw everything from Copperheads to Leapoard Frogs to Schrums to moss, it was really hard to stop shooting!

These two images are straight shots, what you see is what I saw. It was simply a marvelous last morning shoot!

Photos captured by D3, 105VR & 14AF on Lexar digital UDMA film

It was simply a great evening of shooting at Elk Rapids!

It’s great to see the HUGE interest in the few D3 images and trivia I’ve posted here on the blog. In a 12hr period today, the blog received over 1.7mil hits at an average of 20per second. That’s all in response to folks thirsting for info on this killer camera. It also caused our server to crash 4 times!

I’ll be posting no more info on the D3 until later in the year at the time folks are able to buy them for themselves (I’ll post a couple closing images tomorrow AM). I hope that the timing will be such that our new server, text and knowledge of the D3 and website will be out at the time you need it and have a D3 in YOUR hands. For all those emails that have been sent in regards to the D3 that I have not (and won’t be) answered, my apologies but I’m out shooting and simply don’t have time to answer the questions time will shortly answered for all.

Photo captured by D3, 600f4AFS II on Lexar digital UDMA film

What a glorious morning! The DLWS gang headed out to the rural center of the UP and cruised the roads looking for and found Americana. This is a old, one room school house nestled in corn fields in a little valley. We spent sunrise here working the area finding marvelous subjects and having a grand time in the warm temps.

The predawn sky was just killer for working wide. The direction of the school house in orientation to the rising sun, the clouds breaking overhead and the light bouncing of them is what created the natural hallo of light you see in the photo. It was a natural for B&W done in CS3. The light on the front of the school house 45min later naturally drew your eye into the door. The paint is very faded on the sides of the school house and dirty in the bright light. What you see here is a straight shot with the brighter door and jam bringing the eye right into the middle of the photo.

I was dying for something to charge by so I could put the D3’s AF system through its paces. I’m using the 21area AF and it works really, really nice. I was shocked when I first started to play with the D3 in a darken room during a slide presentation and the D3 in those very dim conditions was able to focus on black items. I picked up the D2Xs and it couldn’t even focus on the same items. I’ve been shooting with the new 24-70VR and wow, what a bloody sharp lens! It’s much smaller in real life than I thought it was from the photos and feels really good in the hand. Hopefully this afternoon, I can plug the D3 on my 600AFS II and really give the AF a solid test.

Photos captured by D3, 14AF / 24-70AFS on Lexar digital UDMA film

It was another excellent night of shooting, so good that I spent most of the time with students rather than continuing on exploring the amazing qualities of the D3. I did manage to get a couple of minutes though with the D3 and the results are still hard to grasp. The top photo was taken just prior to the sun setting. What is amazing to me is the color retention of the new color engine and what you can’t see here, the beautifully crisp, sharp files the D3 produces. The files truly are a work of art. The new LCD while not the best at color & exposure rendition, it does show sharpness better than any other LCD I’ve used.

The bottom photo was taken at Slender’s Restaurant. This is a locally renowned restaurant where you can kiss a Moose (I hang out here during my off time) head mounted on the wall. Well the DLWS staff couldn’t pass up having dinner at such a place. Carol, the NPS rep suggested I play with the high ISO, so I cranked it up to 3200 and went exploring. When you open the file and search pretty darn hard, you can find noise but it’s so little, it really is amazing. It’s so good I’m afraid many will pass up good photo technique and simply crank up the ISO.

Since posting this AM that I had a D3, I’ve been flooded with emails with tons of questions. You should be excited about the D3 as it’s a really impressive camera, but I have to apologize, I simply don’t have time to answer every question (especially when many are answered on Nikon’s site), don’t have the bandwidth to post full res files and shoot resolution charts and send them out to folks. I’m more than pleased to have the opportunity to test drive the D3 and make some quick reports, but I simply can’t write a personal user report for every email that comes in. When the time is right, I will post all of my findings and settings. Until then, I hope what I can bring you here will be enough to satisfy and excite you about this evolutionary camera.

Photos captured by D3, 14AF on Lexar digital UDMA film