I was just reading through a DPReview.com and came across this post which mentioned that photojournalist and sports photographer, Robert Hanashiro of USA Today and several others have switched to the Nikon D3 from Canon.
The D3 will be used by Robert to photograph the events in the upcoming Beijing Olympics 2008.
The exact page where Robert mentions the switch is on Page 2 of the article on PopPhoto.com, and I quote:
I put a lot of thought into what I am bringing and what I am packing for this trip. So you’ll get a little sneak preview of the next Sports Shooter “In The Bag” column. We recently switched to Nikon, so [with the full frame D3] the 600mm becomes a more important lens than it did when we shot with cameras that had a 1.3x crop. I think my everyday gear will be: — 2 Nikon D3 bodies — 1 Nikon D300 body — 600mm f/4 — 200-400mm f/4 zoom — 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom — 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom — TC-14 1.4x converter — TC-17 1.7x converter — SB800 Speedlite
That’s a huge load of gear that’s being used to cover the event.
Robert’s also posted more information on the Beijing Olympics on SportsShooter.com (which Robert founded).
The 30-June-2008 SportsShooter newsletter has Robert cursing about his damaged Nikon gear.
Latest update, 18-Aug-2008: Robert confirms that more than half the photographers at the Olympics were using Nikon:
On the Nikon vs. Canon front… Nikon is being used by clearly over half of the photogs here. Nikon’s goal of 33% of the Olympic photographers using their gear looks to have been accomplished. I haven’t seen so much Nikon gear being used at a major event like this in years.