Rating:

The build quality is quite good. The tripod is very sturdy and the equatorial mount is well constructed. If I am not mistaken, some of the more expensive Celestron telescopes use this same tripod and mount. This package comes with a software that helps you locate stars and planets, so as long as you set the telescope to the north correctly, trying to locate stars is not a problem.

One thing I wished I had paid more attention to is the dimensions of the whole telescope kit. It is much larger than I anticipated; my reasoning was: it is a kid’s telescope, it is probably not full sized. Not so!

Most telescope books I read said you cannot get a decent telescope for under $300, but for the beginner, the price and quality of this telescope is a great buy.

Rating:

Main problem is I cant find the gaskets online. VholdR support took care of me so all is good and when I get the gasket I can try it in the water.

Rating:

[...]

Rating:

Finally tiring of the soft focus of the 5D Mark II, I decided to either upgrade to the 1D Mark IV or the Nikon D3S. The decision was a very painful one to make and I dwelled on the subject for weeks before making a decision.

I finally decided on the Nikon D3S because of its full frame sensor and how its relatively large pixel size would be an advantage in low light situations (i.e., High ISO). Also, it didn’t hurt that it was available right away through Amazon and I needed it for my trip to Europe at the end of December.

Now, after having used the Nikon D3S for around 2 months in a variety of situations I can say without hesitation that this is the finest DSLR available. Its ability to shoot sports action in low light is stunning and the focus is very responsive and always spot on! The lenses which I have purchased have all been superior to their Canon equivalent counterparts. Although, the Nikon does have some wholes in their lineup, most notably the the 85mm f/1.2.

While I believe that the filming features of the 1D Mark IV are likely superior it was a mute point for me after a year of experiences with the 5d Mark II. Unless you are very serious you will not get good results filming with any DSLR so I did not consider this when deciding which camera to buy.

In conclusion, I was very nervous about buying the Nikon D3S instead of the Canon 1D Mark IV. However, after using the D3S in a variety of situations I have absolutely fallen in love with this camera.

Rating:

For the past couple of years, I have been using a Nikon D80, which from all the reviews I have read competes fairly well with other cameras in this class. I am not a professional photographer, but I enjoy photography enough that the limitations this consumer-level DSLR seems to have became a source of frustration to me.

I recently upgraded to a D3S, and I am absolutely amazed at the difference between the two cameras. The D3S is ten times the camera–and not because of the marginal difference in mega pixels.

It’s not all about being able to take pictures in near darkness either. I take a lot of wildlife pictures with a solid, f 4.5 70-300mm zoom lens (popular because of its good price/performance tradeoff), and with my D80, if I am zoom out much at all, it has to be a bright sunny day to get really good pictures. Cloud cover and even shade results in quite a bit of color noise and a loss of detail, even at ISO settings as low as 400, and I almost always have to shoot with the aperture wide open to mitigate these problems, which, of course, limits my flexibility in terms of depth of field and tends to wash out bright areas. It is also very difficult to stop the motion of things like birds in flight with the low ISO settings that are required to avoid color noise and loss of detail. This is a very frustrating tradeoff to have to make.

With my D80, I have also noticed that the shading gradation of things like fog and shadows in snow is fairly limited–to the point where pictures of things with subtle shading almost always look washed out or have very little detail. The D3S, on the other hand, has an amazing amount of detail no matter what the subject is, no matter how subtle the shading and despite poor lighting conditions. (For the first time ever, I have been able to take pictures of things like fog rolling over a lake and have it show up just the way my eyes see it! No more blending of subtle shades into a single patch of white.)

My D80 also struggles to be consistent with color balance and metering. The D3S is almost always dead on in terms of color balance and metering and is faster and more consistently accurate with its auto focus.

The fact that the D3S’s image sensor does such a great job in low light situations has opened up new possibilities for me. I can even stop down my slow f 4.5 300mm zoom lens significantly at any focal length and get outstanding results, even on a cloudy day. Think about the possibilities this opens up in terms of lens choices. As an amateur, I simply cannot afford the 10K-a-pop, fast professional lenses, but now I can get great pictures with slower, less expensive lenses, and I can actually extend the capabilities of the lenses I have with things like teleconverters and still get good results. In this sense, the D3S is a bargain.

I have mostly mentioned the quality of the pictures this camera takes, and I do not intend to go into its rich feature set and build quality (other comments below have already done this), but I did want to tell you about some of the considerable advantages I have found with the D3S and tell you about the outstanding results that I have been getting. I am amazed at the quality of the pictures this camera takes, and I am thrilled with the way this camera performs! This camera is in an entirely different class than the consumer-level DSLRs I have used in the past.