Paul & I went to Nikon House in London today and shot off a few frames on the D3 & D300 - needless to say we were impressed. Of the two images below is it blatantly obvious which is 1600 & which is 3200 iso (other than right clicking & checking the file name!)? Both are jpegs, straight out of the camera shots.

OMG!!! I can't tell! And BOTH at high ISO. ISO envious...sorry, couldn't resist....

do you have shots with the D300 to show?

So Sofie, it looks like its one step closer to getting the new toys now hey??

I'll see what I have but when I shot with it, I thought I'd put it on aperture mode but unfortunately the exposure compensation was going up and down like a yoyo (???) so all the exposures are wrong & I didn't notice while I was shooting. Gimme a sec to see...

Lemme take a stab at it... although I admit it is close.

The second one is 1600 ISO.

Did I get it right?

I guessed the 1st was 3200. Very nice indeed.

And I played with the 85mm, tilt/shift lens, which I now SOOOOO badly want!

I've left the images on the large side so anyone interested can see them reasonably well. These are all still straight out of camera shots...

D300 640 iso



D300 1600 iso



D300 1600 iso



D3 1600 iso



D3 1600 iso



D3 4000 iso



D3 6400 iso



D3 - highest setting - something like 25000 iso (shot with the new 14-24 lens but obviously the iso doesn't do the lens justice - neither does my face!!!)




Yes


...& yes!

Whoo hoo! So what do I win!?

You can have my D2X

WOW! These are great!

Niiiice! ... uh, when?



(I can sell it and that'll help pay for the D3 I want soooooooo badly.)

I only see the difference in the black curtain on the left and the 2nd photo is smoother so I guess that's the 1600 but WOW, I love these. Can't wait to get my hands on one of those. Thanks for posting!

Those D3 photos are unbelievable. INSANE!

That was how i guessed also before checking the file names. Very nice. Can't wait to see what Canon comes up with

Oh bless you Nikon

Sophie, not to be off topic but girl, were you ever a model? You're gorgeous! Probably like being behind the camera rather than in front of it,,,like a true photographer. But wow!

Oh, and the cameras are nice too

Glad to see you Nikon guys getting a great upgrade finally! These all look great, very smoothe!

oh wow! thanks for posting these, this is my goal for 2008, I want the d3 and some new glass!

These aren't 100% crops, are they? And if not... any chance of getting some posted?

Here you go - I think this is what you mean! I've cropped into similar shots so it's easier to compare the difference...

1600



3200



800



1600



3200



6400







Thanks for the compliment but no I've never been a model & I'm definitely too old for it now & too short & too big a fat greek b*tt to fit into a size zero!

Forgive my ignorance but I've read this so many times, what exactly is a 100% crop?

I don't know how best to explain it other than I cropped into part of the image without resizing the image itself which means you see part of the image full size on your screen without a reduction in pixels. It's like clicking the "actual pixels" button in Photoshop to view your image at actual pixel size. Hope that makes sense!

It's simply viewing the image at 100% magnification. Of course, the entire image doesn't fit on your screen, hence the crop.

It shows all the flaws or all the greatness!

Sofie,

Thank you for posting these! The 100% crops you posted were all D3 images... and much as I drool over that camera, it's not in my budget, at least not until sometime next year if I'm lucky. Any chance of getting D300 crops?

Most of the D300 shots I took are screwed up with the exposure and aren't particularly sharp. Someone had set bracketing on the exposure before I picked up the camera & I didn't notice. The majority that were ok with exposure weren't very steady. Anyway, I don't really have any reasonable shots to show you at 640 iso unfortunately but I'll post one anyway - I don't think it does the camera justice though.



I'm also sorry to have to say that I think the D300's 1600 iso looks like someone has run Noise Ninja on them. They seem to have this odd soft filter effect them to me. See for yourselves & tell me what you think:

800



1600



1600

Thanks for posting those... you're right, it looks like some NR has been run, and perhaps the in-camera noise reduction was set to high or something. I'm very interested to see some wedding images from that camera as soon as the beta testers I mean early adopters start using them.

Hey Ryan,

If you want a good idea of what the D300 is capable of, I would suggest you go to the camera store and play with a Sony A700. I played with one at my local camera shop and shot all the way up to ISO 6400... it was waaay nicer than any D200 image I have seen. It also kicks the pants off the 40D and is comparable to the 1D3 in noise levels.

Just imagine what Nikon will get out of that sensor... Anyone who wants a D300 should not be dissapointed.

Good suggestion Johnny.

However, I know you are only referring to the sensor capabilities of the Sony. Because when I checked one out recently, I had to go outside to look at the sign on the building to make sure I hadn't wondered into a Toys R Us. The Sony body and functions are a giant load of crap. I have no idea how they expect to compete with Can/Nik at any level.

Absolutely, the body is a joke and is nothing compared to a Nikon or Canon... or Pentax for that matter.
But the sensor, from what I have read, is the SAME as the D300. Granted, the way the images are processed are different between the companies, but if I was impressed by what the Sony did, just imagine what Nikon will do with it!

Either way, to have relatively clean noise at levels that surpass what we have done with film is awesome!
And it makes me even more giddy to know it is built into a Nikon body... oh, my Canons are getting nervous right now. LOL!

I have to go check this new toy out.

Sweet... finally Nikon steps up! Sophie, thanks for the post and the hope... I can't wait to get my hands on a D3.

Last month I almost made the decision to sell all of my Nikon gear and save up for a new Canon 1Ds Mark III and a full suite of lenses. Before I made my decision to stay the Nikon course at least for the foreseeable future I started scouring the web and I came across this blog which made me really excited... I couldn't believe my eyes. I don't remember where I found this blog, possibly on one of the OSP forums but when I saw 3200 ISO next to these images my faith in Nikon started to come back.

Thanks Sofie for posting and posing.
The cameras looks really cool (and you look really sweet).

Hi Sophie!LOL - I disagree, and I just shot a Fashion Show last Friday and you would have done great! Thanks for sharing these images with us. [quote name='amorphia' date='October 23 2007, 11:00 AM' post='224291']And I played with the 85mm, tilt/shift lens, which I now SOOOOO badly want!I've left the images on the large side so anyone interested can see them reasonably well. These are all still straight out of camera shots...D300 640 isoD300 1600 isoD300 1600 isoHi Sophie,Do you remember if the in-camera noise reduction was turned on when you used the D300? I can see the noise reduction blur in the 1600 ISO images and was wondering if the setting could be turned down some?Also, do you recall if the D300 went any higher than ISO 1600?

Looks like you made the right choice...

Sam, I'm so sorry, I didn't see this earlier. I believe the D300 goes up to 3200 and then has something like Lo 1 & Hi 1 which takes it up to 6400. The noise is meant to be 1 to 2 stops better than the D200. As for the noise reduction - I just picked the camera up and shot because other people were waiting to shoot so I didn't really check the settings. There should be some exposure reduction settings in the custom settings on the camera (there is on the D2X) so yes, you should be able to turn the NR down. Hope that helps