[Update: Link fixed.]
Nikon’s just put out a guide for Pro’s with D3’s who shoot sports, mainly.

It reviews autofocus tracking, active D-lighting, auto-iso, etc, and tells you which it recommends in most cases.

If you’ve been using your D3 for a year now, it’s probably nothing new. If you just got it and want to shoot football tomorrow, it’ll definitely help.

The Nikon Asia links requires a registration, I couldn’t even find it on the Nikon global site, so here’s the link directly to the PDF.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but a bit ago, PBase put up a quick comparison between the Nikon D3x noise and the D3’s noise.

Apparently, the D3 is the low-noise Emperor while the D3x does a respectable job, especially given its megapixel count.

From quickly looking at the shots from the D3x, you produce (what looks to me) like a much sharper shot at a NR setting of “Low” than you’d get without any NR. But that might just be their setup.

dpReview posts a nice review of the Sony a900 and includes a wad of shots for comparison at the different ISO’s from 50-6400. But come on, it’s unfair to compare the D3/D700 sensor to anything else at high iso!

And while Sony’s clearly kicking ass and taking names in the megapixel race, it still isn’t up to the competition provided by the Dynamic Duo- Nikon and Canon.

We’re seeing a lot of nonsense rumors around the D3x and various other potentialy Nikon DSLR’s like the D1000 and D800. I’m skipping most of them because they’re completely implausible- but since this one is so specific, I’m going to pass it along:

“Nikon USA’s PR Dept. [said] D3X is coming…slated for December at the moment. Full Frame, Crop features…24.4 megapixels 9 fps and a host of other features. The price? $6499.99 USD (U.S. Dollars) Its supposed to look identical to the D3, and use many of the same D3 addon’s…but have more megapixels, better noise-reduction software and faster high-speed for sports. …”

That all sounds essentially plausible- I doubt the high ISO performance can be far better than the D2x/s, but I’m sure it can be better, I can’t see it matching the D3’s performance though.

I also very much doubt the 9 frames per second (fps) claim. I really think that’s pointless- I still have yet to use that mode on my D3, but ok, someone will.