My Nikon D3

When the D3 was launched, at an eye-watering £3400, I was seriously tempted. Not so much because it was full-frame, but because it offered stunning low-light performance. Here's a shot at 3200ISO:

And this one at an incredible 6400ISO:

Now I know b&w conversion can hide a multitude of high-ISO sins, so here's the colour version. Note that this was taken on a tube platform under horrible flourescent light in auto white balance:

Of course, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and if you want absurdly high ISOs with an incredibly low noise level, then something has to give. The D3 does perform its miracles by aggressive in-camera noise-reduction, which shows up as softness at 6400ISO. Here's an unsharpened 100% crop of the above shot:

But do a standard amount of sharpening and print it as a 10x8", and it looks perfect.

And just to show that you really can push it all the way if you have to, this is 25,600ISO (yes, that's twenty-five thousand and six hundred):

Admittedly that does look very grainy at 100%, but you can get a pretty acceptable 10x8" print out of it. The low-light performance is just incredible.

The camera also has one feature designed to provide peace of mind for vital shoots: a second CF card slot and the ability to write each photo to both cards for an instant backup. For weddings, that's worth a lot.

But the price-tag was undeniably frightening. And as is the case with all Nikon's full pro models, there is no pop-up flash, so controlling SB-800s remotely meant adding another £250 on top for an SU-800 controller.

As new models are never far away, I decided to adopt wait-and-see mode.

Which was when the D700 was released. Well, announced, anyway ('released' is too strong a term for a camera with zero stock levels anywhere in the Western Spiral Arm). It was the D2X/D200 all over again: 90% of a D3 for two-thirds of the price.

But it did lack one key feature of the D3: that second card slot. The rest of the spec difference (not that much) didn't mean that much to me, but for weddings ...

But could I really justify £1200 extra for a bit of peace of mind? I really wasn't sure. Fortunately, the gods were on my side. I found a barely-used secondhand D3 for just a couple of hundred quid more than a D700. Problem solved. :-)

I was always rather dismissive of the 'full frame' thing. The term is, after all, an arbitrary one. There was a time when 10x8" was 'full frame', then 5x4" and eventually 35mm.

But I must confess that it is fantastic to once again have the size and brightness of a 35mm viewfinder: it's the only thing I really missed with the DX format.

The camera itself is a joy to use. Although larger and heavier than the D200 it replaced, it is wonderfully comfortable and balanced in the hand.

Part of my thinking in managing to grab a secondhand bargain is that, at the price I paid, I wasn't locked in. If I decided that the size & weight of the D700 was preferable, along with the convenience of a popup flash for triggering studio strobes and controlling SB-800s, I could sell it for the same amount I paid and buy a D700 instead. But having used the camera for just a fortnight, I can tell you now, that ain't gonna happen!