Last year when I shot the Chicago Bears, I was literally the only Nikon shooter on the sidelines (believe me, I checked). It was a sea of gray glass, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. When I shot the Tampa Bay Bucs a few months back, there was actually one Nikon shooter out there, so I wasn’t totally alone (but almost).
But last Sunday I was at the Bucs vs. Giants playoff game (my buddy Dave bought me playoff tickets for Christmas; 35 yard line—2nd row. It made our embarrassing loss even more vivid—kudos to the Giants though, who played a really great game). Anyway, it was about 15 minutes before kickoff, and two photographers were standing just off to our right, and son-of-a-gun if both of them weren’t shooting Nikon D3s (with long glass). I had to point it out to Dave, because this was 100% more Nikon shooters than I had seen just a few months before, and while Dave and I were pointing in disbelief, another guy toting a D3 walks by. We were just about speechless.
Of course, a few minutes before game time a sea of gray Canon glass began to form, and soon greatly outnumbered the Nikon shooters, but there’s a bigger point here—there were Nikon shooters shooting the NFL! In fact, at one point I saw a Canon shooter walk by with a gray Canon 400mm f/4 lens on a monopod, but he had a Nikon D3 around his neck (with some shorter glass). Again–stunned.
Now, this isn’t a scientific study by any means—-just an observation, but I could see that the D3 is already starting to have an impact. Anyway, just sharing what I saw at the game (I haven’t gotten to shoot enough with my D3 yet to post a full review, but as soon as I get a chance to shoot in some serious low-light situations, and put a few thousands images through it, I’ll give you my full report).
One last thing; I know that in the headline above, it really should read “Nikon D3s” (plural) instead of “Nikon D3’s” (possessive), but when I wrote it, it looked like the name of the camera (like a Nikon D2Xs) instead of just being plural, so I broke the rule (which drives my Editors crazy, but at least by now they’re used it).
