Rob Galbraith has a good article looking at the newly announced Nikon D3, and was apparently allowed to snap a few photos at the press event, unlike the other hands-on preview that I linked to earlier.

Rob was able to briefly look at the image quality shooting high ISO shots with the D3, and writes that it’s much improved over other Nikon cameras and strong competition for cameras like the 1DMkIII, thanks to the large pixel sites on the sensor:

Larger-pixel sensors tend to have better signal-to-noise ratios than smaller-pixel ones, and based on a look at ISO 1600 – ISO 25,600 frames produced by prototype D3 bodies, including a handful we shot ourselves, the camera looks like it will produce low light photos that are both massively cleaner and more usable than the D2Xs and in the same ballpark as Canon’s EOS-1D Mark III (which is the D3′s primary competition). Nikon promises a dynamic range bump of 300%, and we suspect that this claimed improvement is almost entirely because of the lower noise characteristics of the sensor.

Canon’s 10.08 million image pixel, 10 fps digital SLR is capable of producing great quality in available darkness. We’ll need to shoot with a production D3 under real-world conditions to find out whether it approaches, meets or exceeds the EOS-1D Mark III in high ISO image quality. But based on what we’ve seen so far, it’s safe to say that the D3 will produce photos of dramatically better quality than the D2Xs at ISO 1600 and up.

Rob seems much more impressed with the D3′s awesome-sounding new LCD sensor than the other hands on preview we saw yesterday, which sounded a little disappointed and said it didn’t compare favorably to Sony’s high res LCD display:

A 3-inch (diagonal), 170 degree viewing angle rear LCD that is so crisp and clear you’ll never want to use another rear LCD to review your pictures again. Its 920,000-dot resolution makes it possible to judge critical focus when zoomed in to nearly full magnification. In fact, it’s like looking at a screen without pixels; they’re so small as to be invisible when looking at photos at even abnormally close viewing distances. The only thing we’re not sure of yet is how accurate the brightness of the display is, and as Nikon has typically tuned their rear LCDs to render photos lighter than they actually are (when viewed under typical indoor conditions), even when screen brightness is adjusted all the way down, this a concern for the D3 too. But there’s no question about the clarity of the display, it’s awesome.

And he also has an image of the Virtual Horizon Adjustment, which, to me as a private pilot, looks a lot like an airplane’s attitude indicator. Watch me get my hands on a D3 and fly it around the neighborhood, making airplane noises with my mouth. Just watch me, I’ll do it!

Anyway, check out Rob’s full preview, he has lots of good information in there.