Nikon D3 after one year

Almost exactly one year ago, I ordered a Nikon D3 from Grays of Westminster. I had wrestled with my conscience for weeks even months, I had tried to convince myself that I didn't need it, it would do nothing to improve my photography, why move from a D2x to a D3 when the megapixels are the same? All very valid, lucid, rational arguments completely overruled by an irrational desire to possess something that was going to cost me the best part of £4000.

In the end, as is often the case in my life, the irrational gained the upper hand, partly swayed by the not insignificant fact that because I was working on a ship out of Aqaba, Jordan, I would not need to pay the VAT on it.

And so at the beginning of April 08, I sat on a large cruise ship, nervously awaiting news of whether my D3 would arrive. Grays had sent it, Fedex had delivered it, but somewhere along the line, the paperwork was not correct. It was now sitting in a warehouse near Amman International awaiting customs clearance. The hero's of the day were to be a company called Amin Kawar and Sons. they were the ship's agents in Aqaba and dealt with all the issues, kept me informed and on our last visit to the city delivered me a 10kg Fedex box containing what some sports photographs have come to call "Black Gold", the Nikon D3.

So any regrets, well, I could have waited and got the D3 cheaper even without the VAT, but then I would have missed taking some wonderful images, of our journey back to the UK through the Mediterranean. Could I have taken the images on my D2X? Yes almost certainly. Would they have been so good? In my opinion no. In later editions of this blog I will try to convey a little of my relationship with the D3 over the last year but for now, I am going to give it a little clean in preparation for a return to its spiritual birthplace. For tomorrow, almost exactly one year from taking my first D3 images of the evening skyline of Aqaba, I return to that city on the Red Sea and of course my D3 will come with me. Possibly also my Canon G10 but that's a story for another time.