20.01.10
Out of the Dark
As the setting sun slipped behind a cloud bank on the horizon, the JetRanger helicopter I was aboard was soon at full throttle. We hovered momentarily before heading off from Battersea Heliport to photograph London at dusk. Not so long ago, shooting in such low light would have been beyond the limits of stills photograhy, however, Nikon's D3s has revolutionised low-light shooting.
With ISOs up to 128000 the camera can almost see in the dark, and where better to test its capabilities than in a helicopter, which demands a shutter speed of at least 1/500th of a second. I set the camera to Auto-ISO and let it decide when to push up the values to ensure the shutter speed I'd selected. We headed out over the Thames, then on to the City. The camera performed seamlessly and I am embarrassed to say that all I did was point it in the direction I wished – everything else was determined for me. I used the Nikon 70-200mm lens and the results speak for themselves, with a noticeable lack of noise from even the highest settings. I also recorded three HD video clips using the Liveview feature and these also show a high level of sophistication.
I spent the next hour on an open-top double-decker bus around London. I learnt how to stabilise the exposure when shooting HD video and how to activate the high-sensitivity feature, which helps to squeeze out everything that's visible during the hours of darkness. Without doubt, the D3s has set a new benchmark for low-light photography and will open up new forms of photographic expression in an area that was formerly closed. Like the D3 before it, the D3s is built to a standard that the military would be proud of and could be taken into extreme environments with confidence.
Personally, however, I found the D3s an extremely complex camera, and I have to question whether photographers really need yet another tier of complexity, and what role the technology plays in the creative process. It's photography, Jim, but not as we know it!
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