Most of the photos are in their original form, as they emerged from the camera as a JPEG or from the RAW converter (which was a beta version of Nikon Capture NX in most cases, though we processed one file using Phase One's Capture One 4 Beta 2 also).

There are a mix of unsharpened, in-camera sharpened and Photoshop sharpened photos here. The Caption field in each photo notes whether sharpening was enabled in the camera (along with Active D-Lighting, High ISO NR and other key image processing settings), while the filename indicates whether Smart Sharpen was applied in Photoshop (a guide to the naming convention we used is just ahead). None of the files have been double-sharpened.

Thanks to all who've written in requesting a comparison of the D3 and Canon EOS-1D Mark III for night sports and other low light photography. We were given a preproduction D3 in late October, but in making the body available, Nikon USA stipulated that we not publish pictures from it. If that weren't the case, we'd show examples of how the D3 stacks up against Canon's EOS-1D Mark III at higher ISOs, and those examples would reveal that, while there are differences in the appearance of image graininess - Canon's grain pattern is tighter - there's no doubt that the D3 produces a less noisy, higher quality file at ISO 3200 and beyond. This is an incredible achievement on Nikon's part.

On the other hand, EOS-1D Mark III files at any ISO - especially CR2s processed through Canon's Digital Photo Professional - are generally slightly crisper and more detailed. This could be because we're looking at photos taken with preproduction Nikon equipment, but experience has taught us that production gear is likely to show the same image quality traits.

More about all of this, and other comparisons, including how the D3's autofocus system stacks up against an EOS-1D Mark III with the recently-announced sub-mirror fix in place, will come when we have a production-level D3.

Some of the photos are available both unsharpened and in an alternate version that has been treated with Smart Sharpen to counteract the softness introduced by the camera's low-pass optical filter.

All of the photos were taken with preproduction bodies and, in some cases, preproduction lenses too. As such, the image quality delivered by full production cameras and lenses may be different. Though, as noted above, not too much tends to change usually in image quality between late-stage preproduction pieces and shipping units. The one notable exception to this are dead pixels and related sensor defects that haven't been mapped out in preproduction cameras, and which can show up as brightly-coloured dots and lines in photos. It's comparatively rare to see these defects in shipping bodies.