Quality & Size Options

The D3x can shoot in three image aspect ratios/crops. There’s FX, for full frame lenses, DX for lenses designed for the smaller sensor, and 5:4, which crops the full-frame down to the image format traditionally associated with Medium Format cameras.

In all image formats, the camera can shoot in RAW, RAW+JPEG, JPEG or TIFF. If you want to shoot on RAW, you can set it to 12- or 14-bit, with three levels of compression (lossless, compressed or uncompressed). Lossless compression is reversible, and you will lose no image quality and shave 20-40% off the size of the image, and compressed will trim 40-55% off the file size, but with some loss of quality. JPEGs can be set to three levels of quality: fine, normal and basic. There are two types of JPEG compression as well: size priority compresses the files to try and provide a uniform file size; optimal quality creates images that may vary in size substantially.

The D3x ALSO has an option for dynamic range optimization called Active D-Lighting. Like every other setting on this camera, there is an extraordinary level of precise control flexibility. Active D-Lighting. It can be set to auto, extra high, high, normal, low or off. If you want to apply this technology after you’ve already taken a picture, you can tweak the dynamic range of a stored image with the D-Lighting tool in both JPEG and RAW.

Dynamic Range (7.07)

The D3x dynamic range, a measure of its ability to capture a wide range of lights and darks in a single shot, was slightly lower than expected. While by no means poor, it was a shade worse than the comparison cameras.

We noted the dynamic range creeping lower and lower at each ISO. We test the dynamic range using the Kodak Stepchart, which has 20 steps of gray, from white to black. At each ISO we photograph across a variety of exposure levels, and use Imatest to measure the dynamic range More on how we test dynamic range.

For comparisons, we test all cameras at ISO 200. The D3x is a bit below the others tested, so if you rely solely on the built-in JPEG processing, you may notice it is slightly worse than other cameras. This might be due to the camera doing less in the way of tweaking it JPEGs, instead expecting the user to spend more time in post-processing.

Image Stabilization (0.00)

As with all Nikon SLRs, image stabilization for the D3x is based around the lens. After discussion with Nikon, we decided to test the camera with their AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm 1:2.5G N lens, which doesn’t have vibration reduction. This camera is designed for use in a studio setting, with a substantial tripod. While the D3x will undoubtedly benefit from vibration reduction lenses in some settings, we opted to test with a lens best suited for the studio nature of the camera, but without the benefits of vibration reduction.