Thom Hogan Reviews Nikon D3x: Best DSLR Ever, But Don’t Buy It.

Thom Hogan has offered up one of his trademark ridiculously thorough reviews, this time of the Nikon D3x. The bottom line is pretty straight forward, the Nikon D3x takes the best picture of any DSLR today. After that, the picture is much less clear though, beginning with the actual value of the camera. In Thom’s (and most other folks too) opinion the D3x is overpriced. Way overpriced. So that’s one issue. Second are some of the picture taking capabilities of the D3x and how it compares to a certain much lower priced camera known as the Nikon D3. The question is: “which camera is performing better at high ISO”, and to me the answer is a bit murky, but to Thom the answer is clear:

There appears to many people to be more detail in the ISO 1600 D3x example. The dithering impact of the noise has fooled you into thinking that you’re seeing accurate detail there. But you’re not. You should see vertical black and white lines, equal sized, not texture. The D3 at ISO 1600, with less resolution, actually comes closer to capturing the true nature of the detail living there. When I wrote on several fora that people weren’t quite seeing the high ISO results of the D3x correctly, this is one of the things I was referring to. The D3x results may be very pleasing, but we’re seeing very faux detail. I said in many of those posts that I’d rather use my D3 at high ISO than my D3x. I’ll stand by that comment, as things get even more divergent at ISO 3200 and 6400…

-Thom Hogan

There’s way, way more to consume so check out the rest of the review here, but the conclusion is clear(?), the D3x is the best camera ever, but don’t buy it. (Though he himself appears to have one?)

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