Despite its size, this is an easy camera to carry. The extra height means that you can get all your fingers round the grip, and even with one of Nikon's exotic new N-series lenses fitted, it's still wieldy. In typical Nikon style, the controls are arranged for ergonomic efficiency rather than instant recognition, but if you've just come straight from a D200 or D2x, you'll have no trouble. It would've been nice, though, if the different Picture Controls (Standard, Vivid and so on) had been easier to get at, as they're buried in the menus.

There were a couple of other minor operational issues too. Sometime during the test period the sound went off - presumably the wrong button was pressed or a menu setting was overlooked, but we never did find out how to get it back. And twice during lens changing the Focus Mode switch, which is right by the lens release button, was knocked from Single Shot to Continuous.

The effect of this is that the AF squares in the viewfinder don't light any more and the camera will shoot before focus has been achieved - you could spend a long time rooting through the manual before discovering the real explanation. While we're at it, it's worth mentioning the Active D-Lighting option. D-Lighting is Nikon's software technology for lightening shadows in shots that have already been taken.

In Active D-Lighting mode, the camera adjusts the exposure to capture highlight detail, and then applies the D-Lighting adjustment. It works quite well, too, but why bury this in the menus? It takes too long to get to for such a potentially useful tool, and yet it's not something you'd want to leave on continuously, either.

Image quality

Petty gripes aside, the D3 handles really, really well. It's surprisingly quiet for a full-frame camera when shooting at 9fps, too. But it's the image quality that really stands out. Interestingly, in side-by-side tests the D3 proves little sharper than the D300 at low ISOs, suggesting that the resolution is limited by the pixel count and that - hopefully - future, higher-resolution versions will come along which are better still.

But at higher ISOs, the D3 has a very clear advantage. Compared with its rivals, the D300 is exceptional at ISO 1600. The D3, though, just blows it away. In fact, at ISO 6400, the D3 is producing similar image quality to the D300 at ISO 1600. Truly remarkable.

Indeed, the D3 gives you more of everything that's so admirable in the D300. More colour, less noise, faster frame rates. It's a spectacularly good camera. So good, in fact, that we have to repeat our only caveat about the D300.

Good as the cheaper model is, we suspect you're always going to be wondering whether the D3 wouldn't have been the better professional buy.

Via PhotoRadar