The Nikon D3s at 12.800 ISO and 25.600 ISO in real life

OK, I gave my new Nikon D3s a test-run at my corporate event, yesterday. All in all it’s like my good old D3 with the following differences:

- ISO 12.800 is my new ISO 3.200 (feels good to me, I don’t expect clients to notice much quality loss)
- ISO 25.800 is my new ISO6400 (there is a bit of quality loss in the files, but heck, these are shots that you would not get otherwise.)

A word of caution to all my fellow pixelpeepers: ISO 25.800 on the Nikon D3s isn’t much worse thnt what Henry Cartier Bresson had available in terms of image quality, only he just had something like 100 or 400 ISO at best. So, there are not a lot of good excuses left, if your (my) images suck. Can’t blame the horrible lack of light anymore.

Other than better ISO performance:

- I actually liked the “quite” mode quite a lot. I had the camera on “q” all day long. When you listen to “q” at your local store, you might no really be exited. I guess it’s about the same sound level as a regular Canon 5D without any sound dampening. But, working in an environment that isn’t absolutely quite (there’s a speaker speaking or the typical coffee-break murmur) the sound of a Nikon D3s on “q” perfectly merges into the overall soundscape.

- the video mode is utterly useless for a typical event or wedding photographer. You can’t auto-focus while filming, the lenses don’t seem to use their stabilizers and video controls are in stupid places on this camera. If you’re a pro-filmer and want the kick of  low-dof filming -> get a Canon 5D MK2

- dust-removal seems to be working.

12.800 ISO: f9.0, 1/50th handheld, 24-70 at 241mm: converted with View NX, white balanced, no sharpening

And now 25.600 ISO: f5.6, 1/125, 24-70 at 31mm: converted with View NX, white balanced, no sharpening

My conclusion:

A nice addition to my bag of tools. Now, I can take useable pictures at f5.6 in almost every shaddowy area of
my corporate events. Better high-ISO with a slightly better dampened sound. I’m not totally angry  that I have placed my D3 on

Cheers
Frank