The Nikon D3s is aimed at the top end of the professional photography market. There are three key areas that Nikon appear to be pushing hardest with this new camera.
ISO Ratings
First up is the fact that the Nikon D3s is able to shoot at ISO ratings between ISO 200 and ISO 12,800. This range can be expanded further with three High ISO modes. This expands the range to between ISO 100 and ISO 102,400. There are two big advantages to these ratings. The first is it gives photographers the opportunity to take photos at extreme low levels of lighting. The second is that as the quality of photos taken at higher ISO improves it reduces the number of occasions that flash needs to be used. While proving attractive to sports photographers and photojournalists these advances will also appeal to other photographic disciplines. For example wedding photographers can become less conspicuous shooting without flash. This can help a wedding photographer to capture more natural and relaxed photographs that may have not previous been possible.
High Definition Movies
The next area Nikon are pushing is the ability of the D3s to capture High Definition movie footage. This offers a much greater degree of flexibility and opens doors to multi media applications for photographers. The Nikon D3s can record 720p movies at a frame rate of 24 frames per second. Still images can be grabbed from a movie and there are also movie editing options including one that allows you trim a movie so that you can make a copy of a portion of a movie in camera.
Frames per Second
The third area revolves around the speed at which the D3s can capture images. At full frame resolution the top capture speed for still images is 9 frames per second. Again this is likely to be attractive to sports photographers. With the 2010 Winter Olympics on the horizon it will be interesting to see how quickly this new camera is adopted by leading sports photographers.
Sensor Size and Crop Factor
Nikon have built a 24 x 26mm sensor into the D3s. This is their FX format sensor. You also have options to shoot in DX format. This gives a crop factor of 1.5x. In this mode the frames per second you can capture is increased to 11. There is also a setting that gives you access to a 1.2x crop factor.
Megapixels and LCD Screen
As with the D3 the D3s has 12 megapixels. There is a 3 inch LCD screen with a resolution of 921,000 pixels. As you would expect there is a built in dust cleaning system. You can choose from two different type of Live View, with both phase detect and contrast detect being available to you.
Memory Cards
There are slots for two CompactFlash cards. You can nominate which card to record to or you can record to both simultaneously to create an instant backup and protect you from memory card failure. Images can be saved in Jpeg, RAW and TIFF formats.
Weatherproof
The Nikon D3s has an all metal body and is sealed to protect it when you are working in adverse weather conditions.
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