Nikon D3

I love the feeling of a pro Nikon in my hands and after venturing into the digital world with a D200, I was thrilled when I took delivery of my D3. This camera does everything an SLR 35mm should do. It is fast, great autofocus, controls are easily accessable and easily changed. The ISO performance is fantastic and when I do get some noise in my images, I find it much more pleasant than my D200. I can shoot all day long at ISO25 600 when I know that the images will end up in B&W.

I am thrilled that all the lenses that I love to use on my F3, F4 and F5 can be used again as they were intended. The view finder is bright with my lenses and the double brick design means they balance nicely on the D3. Weight of the this camera is not a concern as I am a fully grown adult. The LCD screen has tempered glass which I love because I found that the plastic protector would scratch and dust would settle between it and the screen below. This camera is versatile and a good landscape camera, but 35mm SLR's aren't intended for landscape work. That is what medium and large format cameras are for. When used for its intended purposes, there is no better 35mm SLR on the market today.

-Superb high ISO performance
-Bundled software (Capture NX)
-Build quality, second only to Leica in 35mm
-Autofocus
-Small features like the programable instant flash off button and the virtual horizon
-Battery life
-Colour rendition from those fat pixels
-Dual CF card slots are a Godsend
-9fps

-Price
-Build quality is good but some external plastic bits could have been metal such as the battery door
-Would love a button that instantly took me back to base ISO200 rather than having to scroll but now I am nitpicking

Nikon D200
NikonF5

have used Nikon Australia once and was reasonably happy

The D3 is a huge step forward. While the D3 delivers slightly better image quality at 200 ISO compared to a D2Xs at 100 ISO, high ISO quality is incredibly good and outperforms anything I used before.
Speed, built quality and usability has been continuously improved and should meet any professional's requirements.

Another good thing is that the D3 still works with a large set of older full-frame lenses and still maintains very good image quality. Additionally, with some configurations you get marketable JPGs directly out of the cam.

Probably the best DSLR available!

* Extremely fast
* Very high image quality
* Full (FX) frame for wide angle
* Positively affects your way of photography (high ISO)
* Now Auto-ISO is realy usable in a wide range of ISO values
* D-Lightning
* Improved JPG quality
*

* Expensive
* Somehow, for tele shots I got used to DX and it's extra magnification
* Low-ISO quality no real improvement over D200, D300, D2Xs
* 14-Bit Raw delivers no visible benefit
* Nikon Software not really state of the art (slow, but good quality)

Almost all (semi) professional Nikon since the F3 (including F3HP, F4s, F5, F100, D2X(s), D200, D300, ...)
Many professional grade Canons (EOS 1D Series), Some Minolta, Fuji, Pentax.

Always accurate, high quality, high price.