Nikon D3S Digital SLR Review

ePHOTOzine's Will Cheung takes the Nikon D3s to its limits.

Features_and_handling
Performance
Summary
Specification

Having the freedom to shoot in the lowest lighting levels without having to resort to a flash or a tripod is something that is difficult to appreciate until you have done it. Now I have tried it, I must admit I am hooked. It is simply awesome.

The D3S is a well-endowed camera with features aplenty including a very high ISO capability. Its top true ISO is 12,800 with the option of a staggering ISO equivalent of 102,400 using the Hi3 setting. Interesting, the camera's resolution is a relatively modest 12.1-megapixels so it is clear that ISO speed performance remains a very high priority for Nikon. Judging by this camera's performance, that is well judged. Moreover, th D3S has more than enough pixels for A2-size prints and beyond.

Features and handling

The Nikon D3S is a pro-level camera and built very solidly to withstand hard, daily use. The downside, of course, is that it is a heavy beast.

The D3S is a typical member of the D3 dynasty. It is a large, solidly built DSLR designed for heavy-duty use without missing a beat. While I would not go so far as suggesting you could use it to bang in nails, I will say that the D3S has an incredibly robust feel and I would worry for my newly tiled kitchen floor if I was unlucky enough to drop it there.

Despite its weight, though, it does feel nicely balanced – especially when fitted with the high-spec, fast aperture lenses that most pros will be using. During this review, I partnered the camera with 14-24mm f/2.8, 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, 300mm f/2.8 and 200-400mm f/4 lenses. Its heft is definitely an asset when it comes to stability and shooting at slow-ish shutter speeds where the weight is an advantage.

As befits a DSLR with a £4200 body only price tag, the camera is positively festooned with features. There's options for changing the RAW type between uncompressed, compressed or lossless compressed as well as picture controls for vivid or neutral colours and Active D-Lighting up to the Extra High setting. Not only that but the quirkier options such as GPS and the Virtual Horizon.

The D3S has environmental seals so it should carry performing regardless of the conditions.  Certainly, in the cold and rain that I did my test, the camera performed flawlessly. The buttons are firm and responsive and Live-View has been given a dedicated button just below the screen, so it's easy to use the video function.

Exposure
Generally, I had no real exposure problems with the D3S during the review. It did get fooled in some instances, such as when I did some night shots of a passing bus. When its brake lights came on, I got some underexposed shots, but with its normal rear lights the exposures were fine. Shop fronts with very bright spotlights also caused underexposure but that was not totally surprising.

One shop front I photographed at the equivalent of ISO 102,400 was lit only by street lighting and from across the street, there was hardly anything visible to the naked eye and here the Nikon slightly overexposed the scene, as you can see here.

I took the D3S with a Nikon 300mm f/2.8 to a Pendragon gig to really give the ISO range a thorough workout as well as to see what the exposure system would make of spotlights and dark backgrounds. I left the camera in its 3D Matrix metering mode. Generally, exposures were accurate and retrievable in Raw development. There were a few combinations where contrast was so great that the camera was fooled but that was hardly surprising. For instance, a spotlit guitarist against a black background was oveexposed. Some minus exposure compensation sorted the problem, though.

I did one shot from the balcony where white stagelights were shining directly into the lens and I reckoned underexposure of the lead singer would be guaranteed. Actually, the metering system made a decent fist of the incredibly contrasty scene.

Outside in less testing lighting conditions, the D3S consistently delivered accurate exposures almsot regardless. Yes, strong against the light scenes needed a little more care to get shadow details and like most Nikons I have used, predominately dark subjects tended to be marginally overexposed, but such problems wre generally minor.

No problem with this cloudy scene and exposure is spot on.	More contrast but the D3S has done a fine job with it.
A slightly contrasty scene that the D3S has just about got right.	The D3S copes with no light at all - taken at the equivalent of ISO102,400.

Focusing
I was impressed by the swiftness and accuracy of the D3S's autofocusing. Yes, it is true that I was using fast aperture, high-spec Silent Wave Motor lenses so that has to be borne in mind. However, I tried a selection of Tamron lenses that we have in the ePHOTOzine office and here too AF was impressively quick.

In the Pendragon gig with the 300mm f/2.8, I tried continuous AF to cope with the band members moving around. No problem here even with, at times, really low lighting levels. Not once, did I have to manually lend a hand.

For most of my test shots, I left the camera in its 51-zone AF mode, switching to my preferrred AF mode of single, central AF zone on occasion. What I liked about the AF system was that it just got on with it so I just snapped away confident that I was getting sharp focus time after time. Sitting here writing this review, I am struggling to think of an occasion when the AF system failed to get it right.

The only really minor gripe I have has nothing to be with the actual AF system but with the AF-ON button when shooting in portrait format. I found I kept missing iit, probably because it is not as proud of the body as, for example, my D700 with grip.

Colour and sharpness
I took all of my shots in Raw and Large JPEG mode. Raws were converted in Lightroom and Photoshop CS4 using the latest Adobe Camera Raw plug-in.

Flesh tones were reproduced accurately and I saw no problems with delicate hues too. It all looked very smooth and lifelike, so you cannot ask for any more. In areas of fairly even tone, there was good contrast and separation and plenty of detail. Good tonal separation was also achieved with areas of saturated colours. For instance, the D3S did a great job of the red flower heads and there is loads of detail to enjoy.

Key natural colours such as foliage and blue sky came out naturally too. For JPEGs, I kept with factory default settings and grass and sky came out marginally richer and more vibrant, which is probably what you would expect and there is the chance to fine-tune colour settings so it is not a problem.

White balance

Nikon D3S AWB in tungsten light.	Nikon D3S tungsten preset.
Nikon D3S AWB fluorescent light.	Nikon D3S fluo white preset.

As usual, most of my general test shots were done with auto white-balance to see how camera copes with a wide range of lighting types. To be honest, in outdoor lighting I didn't see the need to take the D3S off AWB at all. Cloudy days, twilight shooting, bright sunny days - all were handled well by AWB.

Naturally, it is a different story in artificial lighting. AWB can't cope with the lower colour temperature of tungsten and you wouldn't expect perfect colour reproduction anyway. The preset tungsten setting works well and gives accurate results.

AWB manages quite well with fluorescent tubes. However, if it does not quite hit the mark for you, there's a large selection of white-balance modes for you to choose from with variations such as cool white, sodium vapour, hi-temperature, day white and cool white. The closest match I could find was basic white for the lights I was using and it gives a more balanced result. Nothing matches custom white-balance, so if you can, do it that way.

By the way, my gig images were shot with AWB and the results looked fine and retain the atmosphere of the stage lighting. The only coloured lights that looked less impressive in AWB were purple and a luminuous green; both looked less exciting than I had hoped for.

Noise
Now we come to the nitty-gritty of its ISO performance.

I took several series of ISO shots in different lighting conditions from bright sun to dull indoor lighting. It was impossible to do a full set on normal daylight scenes because I ran out of shutter speed and aperture settings.

Let's start with images featuring our model, Felicia Field. I shot in the D3S and repeated the same shots using a Nikon D700. The D700 has a top ISO of a modest 6400 with the option of shooting at Hi1 and Hi2 giving the equivalent of ISO12,800 and 25,600. The images of Felicia were lit by a single LP MicroPro Litepanel.

You will not be surprised to hear that there is lots of digital noise and detail loss at Hi3, equivalent to ISO102,400. There are plenty of blue dots in the shadows if you magnify into the image but in the highlights noise was well controlled. The thing to bear in mind is that the times when you actually need (truly, truly need) an ISO102,400 will be few and far between and it is nice to know that should you need it, it can produce decent images.

Move down the speed scale and image quality gets better and better and I would certainly be happy shooting at ISO6400 and 12,800 knowing that image quality would be first-rate.

Where it is really telling is comparing the D700’s images with the D3S’s. The D700 is recognised as being one of the very best DSLRs when it comes to noise performance at high ISOs. Compared with the D3S, however, it is nothing more than average. The D700’s images look mushy and lacking in detail compared with the results of the D3S – just have a look for yourself at the pictures of Felicia.

Check out the ISO25,600 comparison images. In the D700 shot, there is lots of noise especially in the shadows but it is generally not a great image. By comparison, the D3S gives detail-rich, smooth images with hardly any noise at all. Quite remarkable.

It is worth noting that all the model shots on the D700 and D3S were all taken without any high ISO noise reduction engaged.

Click on any thumbnail to open the larger image.

This is the full-frame image of model Felicia Field. Taken with the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at f/2.8.

D3s	D700
ISO6400.	ISO6400.
ISO12800.	ISO12800.
ISO25600.	ISO25600.
ISO51200.
ISO102400.

On our test shots below done in controlled lighting, the image is lovely and smooth and a fraction of black noise only starts to creep in at ISO3200 although the result is still good. This trend continues and at ISO12,800, colour noise is also invading at a point that becomes noticeable but the highlights are pretty much untouched. It needs to be said that at this stage, most cameras would've given up the ghost, but the Nikon has five more settings to get through. Hi0.3 actually looks slightly better than ISO12,800 which is unusual as noise reduction was switched off for this part of the test.

Coloured flecks appear in black areas at Hi1 which is the equivalent of ISO25,600. I've seen better results from other cameras at this setting but it's the final two stages that are what we all want to look at. Hi2 is an equivalent of ISO51,200 and Hi3 is an equivalent of ISO102,400. Hi2 starts to get problems with blue speckles littering the dark and mid-tones and by Hi3 this has increased to include purple and red flecks too.

Still, the fact that this camera can record an image in near pitch black is a feat in itself and I think that most photographers will be willing to overlook this if it means that they get the image they need.

Click on the thumbnails to open up the larger images.

ISOLo1	ISOLo0.7
ISOLo0.3	ISO200
ISO400	ISO800
ISO1600	ISO3200
ISO6400	ISO12800
ISOHi0.3	ISOHi0.7
ISOHi1	ISOHi2
ISOHi3

At the Pendragon gig I shot at ISO400 upwards. Mid-range settings such as ISO800 provide lovely detail with very mild black noise present in darker areas. Moving up the range and coloured noise starts to throw its weight around at ISO6400. It's noticeable in shadow areas but the images produced at this setting are still perfectly acceptable and in this particular situation, the coloured pixels help the atmosphere.

I'm still amazed at how well the camera controls noise, especially as noise reduction wasn't used in the test at the concert. ISO25,600 looks good and while there's still noise coming through and fine detail is beginning to dissipate, I think that the amount of detail recorded is sufficient.

By ISO102,400 there are red marks appearing in the darker areas and blue spots in the mid-range. Test images showed definite noise but because of the ridiculously high setting, I think this should be overlooked for the fact that these images were taken in next to pitch black.

Click on the thumbnails to open the full size images.

ISO800

ISO6400

ISO12800

ISO25,600

ISO51200

ISO102,400

Taken to check noise in low light outdoors, shot with the new 70-200mm at f/2.8 handheld. Click on the detail shots below for fullsize files.

ISO12,800

ISO25,600

ISO51,200

ISO10,2400

Adding noise reduction (through the menu system) is possible and at high speed there are three settings of low, normal and high. It works nicely, dropping the amount of "bittiness" that can appear with noise but it's at the expense of sharp detail. That being said, it's not that bad. Words can still be read, colours actually get better because the noise that remains gets lost in lighter tones and bold colours become more rich thanks to the smoothing effect.

With a long exposure, you have to look closely at the photographs to see any difference. In our tests, an eight second exposure didn't create that much noise anyway but what was created was easily suppressed by the camera.

High ISO noise reduction
High speed ISO noise reduction off.	High speed ISO noise reduction low.
High speed ISO noise reduction normal.	High speed ISO noise reduction high.
ISOHi3 with lights off, noise reduction off.	ISOHi3 with lights off, noise reduction on.
Long Exposure noise reduction
Long exposure, noise reduction off.	Long exposure noise reduction on.

DxOMark provides objective, independent, RAW-based image quality performance data for lenses and digital cameras to help you select the best equipment to meet your photographic needs. Visit the DxOMark website for tests performed on the Nikon D3S.

Nikon D3S: verdict
How do you decide whether the D3s (or any piece of camera kit, for that matter) is worth the best part of £4000? It's not an easy question to answer and depends on how you view camera value. For me, however, I think the D3s is worth every penny. It is a thoroughly inspirational piece of kit to use and that in itself justifies its price tag immediately. Its high ISO sensitivity means you can carry on shooting in the poorest ambient light and without using a tripod. That would count for nothing if the results from using the high ISOs were poor and unusable, but they are not. Yes, there is noise and detail loss at the equivalent of ISO 102,400, but you still get an image – and try getting that sort of speed from film!

FEATURES
HANDLING
PERFORMANCE
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL

Nikon D3S: Pros
Image quality
Low light performance
Inspirational to use
Handling

Nikon D3S: Cons
Price
Not much else

Nikon D3S specification

Resolution	12.1Mp
Sensor size	36x23.9mm
Sensor type	FX CMOS
Max. image size	4256x2832
Aspect ratio	3:2, 5:4, 1:2
Focus system	TTL Nikon Multi-CAM 3500 FX sensor
Focus points	51 (15 cross-type sensors)
Focus types	Single-shot, continuous servo AF, predictive AF, manual
Crop factor	1x
Lens mount	Nikon F
File type	JPEG, NEF, TIFF, AVI (Motion)
Sensitivity	ISO200-12,800 (expandable to ISO100, 25,600, 51,200 & 102,400)
Metering system	TTL open aperture using 1005 pixel RGB sensor
Metering types	3D Matrix II, spot (1.5%) and centre-weighted
Exposure compensation	+/- 5EV in 1/2 or 1/3 EV increments
Shutter speed range	30sec - 1/8000sec & Bulb
Frames per second	9fps max (11fps in DX Crop mode)
Flash	Hotshoe
Flash sync speed	1/250sec
Image stabilisation	VR system in Nikon lenses
Integrated cleaning	Yes, Image Dust Off (with optional Capture NX2)
Live view	Yes, for still and movie shooting
Viewfinder	Eye-level pentaprism, 100% approx
Monitor	3in TFT LCD (921,000dot)
Media type	CompactFlash I and II, dual slot
Interface	USB 2.0, HDMI, video out
Power	Lithium-Ion battery EN-EL4a
Size	160x157x88mm
Weight	1240g (body only)