The Nikon D3 in 2025 ~ Photos & Thoughts

In December 2023, I upgraded from a Pentax K5 to a Nikon D3. With the K5, I used either a 35mm macro limited lens or a 77mm 1.8 limited. The K5 had deteriorated gradually.

First, the SD card slot stopped working, with cards getting stuck, leaving only the USB port usable. When that eventually failed as well, I switched to a Nikon D3.

Build quality and life expectancy

The D3 is in a completely different class from the Pentax K5 in terms of construction. It’s often described as ‘built like a tank,’ and it’s easy to see why: it has an almost military-grade feel.

“The camera I bought on eBay had a shutter count of 90,000. Given that the D3 is rated for up to 500,000 actuations (and some report over a million), it still has a long life ahead with some people reporting shutter counts as high as 1,000,000-1,500,000.

D3 second-hand market prices in 2025

Thanks to low prices on the second-hand market, I’ve had a good budget to try different lenses. The Carl Zeiss Milvus 50mm 2.0 is my current favorite. MPB lists the D3 at €319–€484.

US prices on eBay seem to be around $270. Another favorite is a vintage Nikkor 2.8 macro lens produced around 1985.

What I use the Nikon D3 for in 2024

When I got the camera, I was primarily interested in macro photography of vintage tubes for a blog post about a Leben tube amplifier that you can see below.

This evolved into the ‘Objects for an Ideal Home‘ series which started when I took the D3 with me on a summer vacation to the northern coasts of Denmark where I photographed sea urchins.

The Nikon D3 above is pictured on top of the Japanese pressing of John Coltrane’s ‘Love Supreme’ album mounted with a Carl Zeiss Milvus f/2 macro lens.

Short summary

In short, I am very pleased with the Nikon D3 and it has rekindled my interest in the visual arts in general and photography in particular, both academically and artistically.

Nikon D3 Ratings

Overall Rating: 8.5
Overall Image Quality: 8
Value for money (used): 10
Must have: 7.5
Fit for intended use: 10
Got what I expected: 10
Autofocus performance: 6
Handling and ergonomics: 10
User-interface: 8

This review was originally written for Photography on the Net, in the latter half of 2022. In November it was announced that the site was closing by year’s end, which led me to move the review here.

Also see: Shooting with the Nikon D4 in 2025 ~ Photos & Thoughts

D3 Specs

Nikon D3 release date: August 2007 (23rd)
Country of production: Japan
Sensor type: CMOS
Sensor size: 36 mm × 23.9 mm (full-frame)
Resolution: 12.1 megapixels (4256 × 2832 pixels)
Sensor size: 36 x 23.9 mm
Camera type: DSLR (digital single lens reflex camera)
Field of view crop factor: 1.0
Superseded: D2Hs and D2Xs
Mount: Nikon F mount
Max shutter speed: 1/8000 sec
Min shutter speed: 30 sec
View-finder: Optical
Memory card type: CF (Compact Flash)
Auto-focus area: 51 TTL (through the lens)
Frames per second: 11
Built-in flash: No
Frames per second: 9 seconds in full frame mode, 12 frames per second in DX (crop) mode
Screen: 3 inches – 307,000 pixels
Weight: 1,240 grams / 2,73 lb
Product color: Black
Photo formats supported: JPG, TIFF,NEF (raw)
Supported video formats: avi
Replaced by: Nikon D3s (announced in October 2009)
Battery compatibility: Nikon EN-EL4a
Memory card slot: Compact Flash
Latest firmware: 2.03
Users have reported that Compact Flash cards up to 32GB work.