A few months ago, on a whim, I picked up a well-used but still perfectly functioning Nikon D3s. This was a camera I had always desired but could never afford (at over $5000 when new). It’s a heavy old beast with a FF sensor of only 12MP. My current Fuji cameras have twice that, but does it matter to me.
Why would I choose to go backward I am sure a few people would ask. I had a few Nikkor lenses that I used with my Nikon D2HS and wanted to try these out just for fun. After getting the camera set up to use in the way I like I was really impressed with the results. Yes a little more care had to be taken with composition and framing due to the size of the sensor, but the results impressed me.
My first experiments with the old Nikkors that I had impressed me so much I started looking around at other lenses. I ended up buying, very reasonably from Japan, a Nikon 85mm f1.8D and locally a 50mm f1.8G both of which give satisfying results and great bokeh.
The thing I did notice was the AF ability which certainly was really fast and accurate, in some instances faster that my new fujis. The added weight I did not find to be a problem in shooting just in carrying it around for long periods. The weight seemed to stabilise it with in built stabilisation.
The lenses I picked up could only be described as Nikkor and were contrasty and sharp even wide open which was no less than I would have expected.
This is a 12-year-old camera and in some ways, its functions are definitely lagging behind the new breed of mirrorless as would be expected, but it is still more than capable of taking superb quality images. Do I regret purchasing it, as my son says NO WAY !!!!
