The D4S ($6,499.95, body only) is the biggest, baddest Nikon camera that you can buy. The body is huge, thanks in part to an integrated vertical shooting grip, and it can rattle off shots at a little under 11 frames per second, even with tracking focus enabled. Its full-frame sensor is as big as 35mm film, with a low-resolution 16-megapixel design that allows you to push the ISO as high as you need to get a shot. Some shooters may want more resolution—Nikon covers the needs of studio and landscape photographers with the 36-megapixel D810—but if you're shooting fast action, this is the Nikon SLR to get. Its performance is impeccable, and it earns Editors' Choice honors.

Design and Controls

A big, heavy camera, the D4S measures 6.2 by 6.3 by 3.6 inches (HWD) and weighs in at 2.7 pounds. Its design is similar to Canon's fast-shooting EOS-1D X (6.4 by 6.2 by 3.3 inches, 3.4 pounds); both build the vertical shooting grip into the camera. The body is built like a tank, with a magnesium alloy chassis and extensive protection against dust and moisture. We don't recommend using it to hammer nails, but it certainly feels like you could do so without any ill effects. Unlike some other Nikon full-frame bodies, including the D750 and the D810, the D4S doesn't include an on-board flash.

The camera is rife with physical controls—it puts almost every function imaginable at your fingertips. The front plate includes Pv (depth of field preview) and Fn controls, as well as two front control dials and a switch-button combination that controls the autofocus mode. On the top plate you'll find a dial to adjust the drive mode along with buttons to set the flash mode, metering pattern, and bracketing options, all to the left of the optical viewfinder. To its right there's a monochrome information LCD, the Mode button, a Record button for movies, an Exposure Compensation button, and the integrated power switch and shutter release.

There's another shutter release at the bottom right corner of the camera, part of the vertical shooting grip. It's surrounded by a switch that enables or disables controls on the grip, and an unlabeled button that is used to lock exposure. The rear plate houses playback and delete controls running down the left side. The right rear houses two controls wheels (one at the top, the other at the bottom), two small joystick, a directional pad with a center select button, and two AF-ON buttons to activate the focus system. Each rear joystick moves the active focus point around; the directional pad does the same when shooting, but it alone is used to navigate through menus. Many of the D4S's control buttons can be remapped via the menu system, so you can configure the camera to suit your shooting style.

The integrated grip design offers an advantage over the add-on grips used by other full-frame models like the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. There's room for additional rear controls, below the rear LCD. These include a monochrome rear information display that shows the ISO, image quality setting, and white balance, as well as controls to adjust them. There's also a button to record voice memos, and a small microphone, which is helpful for making quick notes on an image. Finally there's a toggle switch to change between video and still recording mode, as well as a button that switches to Live View mode.

The rear LCD is a 3.2-inch panel with a 921k-dot resolution. It's quite sharp, so you'll have no issues confirming focus of shots in the field. It's also suitable for confirming focus when shooting still or video in Live View mode, although you'll want to magnify the portion of the frame on which you're focusing. There's no plastic protector as there is for the D810, and the screen doesn't tilt like the one on the D750. The LCD didn't pick up any scratches as it moved in and out of camera bags during my test period, but you may want to add a protector if you feel that your D4S is going to live a rough life.

The D4S is a full-frame camera, and its viewfinder dwarfs those found in SLRs with smaller APS-C image sensors. It's a 0.7x magnification finder that covers 100 percent of the frame, equaling the quality of other current full-frame Nikon models. Canon uses a slightly higher magnification prism (0.76x) in the EOS-1D X, but unless you're looking at them side-by-side it would be tough to tell the difference.

It's designed with autofocus performance in mind, however, and doesn't support changeable focus screens. Don't expect the same manual focus experience that you'll get with an old 35mm F3—if you're shooting with wide-aperture manual focus primes like the Zeiss Otus 1.4/85 you'll want to use Live View if you want to perfectly nail focus at f/1.4. At narrower apertures the camera's electronic rangefinder—a small green dot in the viewfinder that indicates a focus lock—is a more reliable indicator of a properly focused image.