My Camera, My D3

From the day that I bought the Nikon D3, one thing that I can say is, I got magic! I couldn't describe it as just a camera, but as a magical wand, a wave of which turns your imagination into a picture. A truly amazing camera. I don't think there is anything that is impossible to achieve with the Nikon D3. Before I bought a D3, the only thing that I was expecting from this was a very fast camera (shutter speed of 9fps in RAW mode and 11fps in JPEG mode) which was also full frame. But once I bought it, I changed my entire idea of the D3 or any full frame camera. The only word that could describe the D3 is ULTIMATE. It's a truly awesome camera. So I thought I would write a small description in layman's language. There are scores of websites out there which will give you all the features, specifications etc, so I'm not going to do that.
I normally work with my D3 or D90 (yep, I'm a Nikon guy!) in manual mode. But this camera also has got P (Program) mode, S (Shutter priority) and A (Aperture priority). Being a professional camera, there is no automatic mode or any of the other modes like portrait, landscape, etc.  One exceptional characteristic of this camera is the capability to take pictures in high ISO settings. I have taken pictures with ISO at 2000 and not seen any problems in the pictures. The picture below is one taken at ISO 2000. That does not mean that you do not get noise at all if you go higher. You do get noise, however, compared to other cameras, it has less noise.

Taken using Nikkor 105mm, f/8, shutter speed 1/200, ISO 2000 (Picture is as taken, no post processing done)

In the D3, there are 2 slots so you can store 2 compact flash cards at a time. This is very good as if you are my type and take lots of photos, then when one card gets full, you can continue shooting on the next one. Another advantage is that you can set it to simultaneously shoot into 2 cards at the same time so you have a backup of all your pictures in the second card. I used to download pictures directly from the camera to the system and sometimes use a card reader, but then I had a problem as it used to get stuck midway and some of my pictures would become corrupt. My camera too began getting stuck and I despaired that this was a problem that the camera had but one which I could not find on any forum. But once I upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7, I had this problem no more. I have also heard from some of my friends that they were having the same problem with Windows Vista. I don't know if this has been corrected or if they have an update to remove this problem, but now that I have Vista no more, I am not worried about it and I have no problems whatsoever in downloading my pictures.
Now you may be of the mindset that the number of pixels is what is important and more the pixels, better the camera (just like I was once). To a big extent, this is true, but it's not completely true. The quality of the picture depends on the pixel size. I have got a D3 and D90 (ya, I know, I already told you that!), both of which are 12.1 megapixel cameras. However, larger the width of the sensor, larger is the pixel size, which means that it collects more light. Thus, the details in the picture will be much higher than the DX sensor. In normal language, when you enlarge a picture, you are not losing the details as each pixel contains more details. There are many arguments out there in the net about this, but this is one way that you could use to describe it.
If I had to highlight a major disadvantage of the D3 it will be its lack of self sensor cleaning capability. And honestly, IT'S A PAIN IN THE YOU-KNOW-WHAT TO CLEAN IT!!! My suggestions for cleaning this camera would be to invest in 1. A good quality blower (not the cheap ones which have low quality rubber which actually puts more dust inside the sensor than clean it up), 2. Visible Dust Sensorscope (I used the Delkin sensorscope, but found that while it was perfect for my D90, I wasn't able to see all the dust properly in the D3), 3. Arctic Butterfly L724 brush, 4. Wet/dry swabs (again, use a good quality one as the lesser quality ones leave lint on the sensor thus messing it up) and 5. E2 Eclipse liquid. Use the blower to blow away dust particles. This will clean up the majority of dust. Use the sensorscope whenever necessary to view if and where the dust is. Then clean with the Arctic Butterfly L724 brush and if there is still more dust remaining, clean using swabs using E2 Eclipse solution. Be careful not to clean too much towards the sides as there is some greasy stuff there and you certainly do not want this to spread to your sensor. If it spreads on to the sensor, you may need professional cleaning done to remove it, and mark my words, you may see your bank balance reduce big time (at least here it is quite expensive). Look through the sensor scope and if there is still some dust remaining, then repeat the steps again. It may take a few tries till it is successful.
You must be aware that the next level from the D3 is the D3s, which has got sensor cleaning capability, video and a much better Expeed processor. I have now heard that Nikon will be coming out with a D4 during the summer of 2011. Looking forward to it!
I will write about my D90 as well soon, so look out for it. If you have any questions related to the D3, I'll be glad to answer it to the best of my capabilities. Till next time...C ya!