Is the Nikon D3X a viable alternative to medium format?
Photographers have always been searching for the perfect solution. Whether it is the perfect bag, film, developer, tripod, lens or camera it seems that there is no escaping the fact that compromise is required. The whole 35mm system as we know it was a product of compromise. Photographers needed to be able to capture images in remote destinations, or be able to shoot discretely and at frame rates that weren’t possible with medium and large format cameras. Using a smaller film format resulted in a sacrifice of quality against medium format systems and a split in the applications of each system. Professional photographers tended to favour the increased resolution of medium format for commercial studio work, architecture and landscape photography whereas 35mm systems proved more popular with press photographers covering news and sports, wildlife photographers and social documentary. Using a smaller film format meant that the quality of medium format would never be attainable with a 35mm system. This isn’t necessarily the case with digital cameras and it’s cameras such as the Nikon D3X that start to blur the lines.
Sensors in medium format digital cameras are not simply scaled up versions of those in 35mm based digital cameras. The physical structure of the sensors is different between camera models and a larger sensor does not automatically result in improved image quality. Whilst it is still true that many of today’s current medium format digital cameras offer higher resolutions than 35mm DSLRs, this often comes at a cost. The most apparent difference is in the price. A high end digital back alone can cost over £10,000. The D3X body can be bought for under £5000 and for that you get a resolution that was solely medium format territory only a couple of years ago, 24.5 million pixels producing 50MB 14-bit RAW files that can be processed to produce 140MB TIFFs. Even with regards to image quality there are areas where 35mm based DSLRs have an advantage.
Due to the nature of the environment in which medium format is shot, predominately studio work and tripod based photography, high ISO shooting has never been a priority and it is noticeable that image quality drops off considerably above 400 ISO with most systems. The current flagship of the Hasselblad range for example is limited to shooting at a high ISO setting of 800. The D3X’s ISO range is extendable up to 6400 ISO. This has the potential to extend the range of shooting environments well beyond the studio.
Of course there is no point in having a great sensor if the body does not match up. The D3X again excels here when compared to its medium format competition. The body is magnesium alloy with environmental seals behind every button and dial, a Kevlar/carbon fibre shutter mechanism rated at 300,000 cycles, dual compact flash card slots and a battery life of 4,400 shots per charge. All this is in a body that is much more portable than medium format offerings.
It’s a familiar story in recent times, professional photographers having to diversify in order to attract new clients and protect their income. As a result of this we have seen a great number of medium format users buying into a 35mm system to run alongside their current equipment. There are obviously serious cost implications in doing this. There are two further areas in which the D3X excels compared to medium format cameras, both of which allow for a greater range of subjects to be photographed to standards that clients demand. These two areas are in the speed of operation of the camera and the comprehensive range of lenses available from Nikon.
The aforementioned Hasselblad is limited to shooting at 1.1 frames per second. This is fine for studio work. The D3x can shoot full 24.5MP images at 5 frames per second, and should you need more it can fire in a high speed crop mode, recording 10.5MP at up to 7 frames per second. Combine this with arguably the best auto focus system available and you have a camera that is extremely capable of shooting in the most demanding sports and wildlife environments.
Whilst the D3X is obviously an extremely capable camera it would be nothing without a lens system to match. This is another area in which Nikon excels with only Canon able to offer a similar range and quality of lenses for a particular lens mount. The current Nikon lens range covers focal lengths from 14mm to 600mm, including tilt/shift lenses, macro lenses, wide aperture portrait lenses and vibration reduction across many of them. In addition to this there are numerous lenses available in the Nikon F mount from Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Carl Zeiss and many others. Should you be considering a D3X instead of a medium format digital back then the following highlighted lenses may be of the most interest:
Three specialist lenses allow you great control over perspective and depth of field. These lenses allow you to perform tilt and shift movements with 90° rotation in order to avoid converging verticals for shooting architecture, and maximising depth of field for product shots. You can also achieve creative control over the plane of focus for unique portraits.
Two fast lenses ideally suited to portraits and low light shooting. The wide f/1.4 maximum aperture creates an extremely shallow depth of field and both lenses render the out of focus backgrounds very smoothly to help the subject really stand out from its environment:
Three very sharp macro lenses offering true 1:1 magnification. The 60mm is extremely small and light, the 105mm has an integrated VR system for hand-held shooting and doubles as a very nice portrait lens. Finally the 200mm allows a very useful 50cm working distance at maximum reproduction ratio to enable you to easily light your subject and avoid disturbing living creatures.
Nikon have 5 super-telephoto lenses that are the staple of any sports or wildlife photographer’s kit. The are amongst the fastest focusing lenses available, are all of exceptional optical quality and have VR systems built in. These are the lenses you’ll see in use from the sidelines at Wembley to the plains of southern Africa.
A lens unique to Nikon is this super-telephoto zoom lens. It has been responsible for switching a great number of sports and wildlife photographers to the Nikon system. It has image quality, autofocusing and VR to match the telephoto lenses above but also offers the unique flexibility of a zoom lens.
The 3 workhorse lenses for many professional photographers, this trio of f/2.8 zoom lenses cover 14-200mm with the highest possible image quality from a zoom lens. The 14-24mm simply has no comparison from other manufacturers, it has image quality to surpass many prime lenses in that range. The 24-70 and 70-200mm lenses are equally at home in the studio or on location. This set of three lenses is all about flexibility whilst maintaining quality.
Almost all of Nikon’s current lenses offer weather sealing to maintain the integrity of the camera’s resistance to water and dust.
When you combine a body such as the D3X with the range of lenses you have available from Nikon then you have a system that can take the place for many photographers of their current set-ups. This is before you start to consider the range of wireless automatic flashguns, remote control software and other Nikon bodies such as the D3S, capable of shooting at ISO equivalents of 102,400 (4 stops beyond 6400).
If you're interested in exploring the potential of the D3X or any other products in the Nikon range then please don’t hesitate to contact us for expert, first-hand advice.