I'm a D300 fanbay and I don't care!
Discussion
Just thought I'd pop a thread on about the D300 rant now I've had a chance to use it in anger for a while (see the Papua thread)/ Really is a fantastic camera. I've come from Canon EOS 300D to Nikon D80 to the D300 (with the glass carried over from the D80.
Main reason for the swap (apart from it being a build tougher to come with the Papuan Jungle / rain) was that I was dropping a lot of shots due to AF missing. SOme of this maybe me not understanding the D80 fully and fast apperture slow-AF lenses, but 80% of the dropped shots were AF I guess. Hence D300 was interesting with the improved AF, 51 point 3D tracking, face rec etc. I found I loose very few to AF (if any in fact) with the D300. Far better at locking on, easy to change modes with the rear selector, and Face AF works really well, picking the closest eye to put in focus at least 60-70% of the time. It even manged this on a bloke with a large pig bone through his nose! Does need to be in the correct mode though. Tried 3D tracking once, seems to be okay, but I think it will take practice to get the AF selector on the money to kick it off, but I don't do a lot of action stuff.
AF fine tune is a revelation. Seriously. First lens I did was the 50mm. It back focused quite a bit, and after spending about half an hour tuning tweaking the settings I did a before and after shot and was flaberghasted! Amasing difference. If you have a D300/D700/D3 set this up and use it, you can always turn it off if you don't like. At least give it a go with one lens, and compare the before and after. Bit of a pain it's at one focal length (for zooms) and at a single distance though, but that does save time setting it up. As I said on the other thread I amy have goofed with the 70-200 as I did it when it was going dark, so you do need to be careful and pick the most typical FL and distance.
Live View is a bit cumbersome to use, not really my thing but was useful for a macro of a spider over my head where I couldn't get an eye to the viewfinder.
The noise is a revelation. I was expecting the oft quoted 1-stop improvement over the D200/D80, but in practice it seems more than that. I don't tend to use in-camera NR or sharpening(I prefer to this in post), but at least a couple of times working through my shots from this trip I'd run a 3200 ISO image through PS, then realise I'd completely forgotten to remove the noise from it. With that and the 30mm F1.4 I'm starting to believe if there's enough light to see, there's enough light to take a picture. This image (whilst no the best in the world) was taken with just the light from a single candle... http://www.pbase.com/duncan_c/image/105650475/orig...
Lastly it's nice and chunky, well built, easy to use and you can get to everything really quickly. The fast frame rate shooting is fantastic for action (I was shooting people jumping off waterfalls and getting 5 or 6 images per jump!),and the AF seems to keep well.
Downsides? Well it is heavier. I'm still not 100% confident in the meter. In matrix it likes to expose for skies and backgrounds, whereas the D80 used to go for the foreground. Just the difference between a consumer SLR and pro-sumer I guess. Thing is the D80 I almost got to the point of letting it do everything itself as it was pretty much infallible. The D300 I have to keep an eye on. I'm getting more used to it now though. Switching between Flash commander mode (to drive external flashgun) and using the on board flash in TTL is a bit buried in the menus. No built in IR for a remote. That's about it!
In short it's fab. I wasn't sure it was a big enough step from the D80. It was. In fact, there's very little else I need from a camera*
Main reason for the swap (apart from it being a build tougher to come with the Papuan Jungle / rain) was that I was dropping a lot of shots due to AF missing. SOme of this maybe me not understanding the D80 fully and fast apperture slow-AF lenses, but 80% of the dropped shots were AF I guess. Hence D300 was interesting with the improved AF, 51 point 3D tracking, face rec etc. I found I loose very few to AF (if any in fact) with the D300. Far better at locking on, easy to change modes with the rear selector, and Face AF works really well, picking the closest eye to put in focus at least 60-70% of the time. It even manged this on a bloke with a large pig bone through his nose! Does need to be in the correct mode though. Tried 3D tracking once, seems to be okay, but I think it will take practice to get the AF selector on the money to kick it off, but I don't do a lot of action stuff.
AF fine tune is a revelation. Seriously. First lens I did was the 50mm. It back focused quite a bit, and after spending about half an hour tuning tweaking the settings I did a before and after shot and was flaberghasted! Amasing difference. If you have a D300/D700/D3 set this up and use it, you can always turn it off if you don't like. At least give it a go with one lens, and compare the before and after. Bit of a pain it's at one focal length (for zooms) and at a single distance though, but that does save time setting it up. As I said on the other thread I amy have goofed with the 70-200 as I did it when it was going dark, so you do need to be careful and pick the most typical FL and distance.
Live View is a bit cumbersome to use, not really my thing but was useful for a macro of a spider over my head where I couldn't get an eye to the viewfinder.
The noise is a revelation. I was expecting the oft quoted 1-stop improvement over the D200/D80, but in practice it seems more than that. I don't tend to use in-camera NR or sharpening(I prefer to this in post), but at least a couple of times working through my shots from this trip I'd run a 3200 ISO image through PS, then realise I'd completely forgotten to remove the noise from it. With that and the 30mm F1.4 I'm starting to believe if there's enough light to see, there's enough light to take a picture. This image (whilst no the best in the world) was taken with just the light from a single candle... http://www.pbase.com/duncan_c/image/105650475/orig...
Lastly it's nice and chunky, well built, easy to use and you can get to everything really quickly. The fast frame rate shooting is fantastic for action (I was shooting people jumping off waterfalls and getting 5 or 6 images per jump!),and the AF seems to keep well.
Downsides? Well it is heavier. I'm still not 100% confident in the meter. In matrix it likes to expose for skies and backgrounds, whereas the D80 used to go for the foreground. Just the difference between a consumer SLR and pro-sumer I guess. Thing is the D80 I almost got to the point of letting it do everything itself as it was pretty much infallible. The D300 I have to keep an eye on. I'm getting more used to it now though. Switching between Flash commander mode (to drive external flashgun) and using the on board flash in TTL is a bit buried in the menus. No built in IR for a remote. That's about it!
In short it's fab. I wasn't sure it was a big enough step from the D80. It was. In fact, there's very little else I need from a camera*
- don't quote me on that in 18mths time!
Edited by VxDuncan on Tuesday 18th November 20:18
Simpo Two said:
The only thing stopping me from getting one and relegating the D200 to back-up is that I can't find software I like for processing D300 NEFs. My needs are very simple but the writers seem to prefer making sexy interfaces, gimmicks I don't want and clunky batch workflows.
NEFs are my only source of pain too. CaptureNX software is noticeably better than lightroom for its output and ease of getting a good result without doing a thing to it, but it has such awful workflow. Lightroom has nice workflow but sometimes I simply can't get the lovely picture that I can see in NX no matter how much I fiddle. I hear lightroom 2 may be better, but whilst the manufacturers keep this stuff proprietary and don't want to play its the user who suffers. I guess Nikon don't want their logic used to improve Canon shots and vice versa? Still, whats different between D200 and D300 NEFS? Surely they are all well supported now?
Simpo Two said:
The only thing stopping me from getting one and relegating the D200 to back-up is that I can't find software I like for processing D300 NEFs. My needs are very simple but the writers seem to prefer making sexy interfaces, gimmicks I don't want and clunky batch workflows.
Yup, I'm used to using ACR within photoshop, but my version doesn't support the later versions of ACR so am stuck converting to DNG, then importing the DNG's. In truth I compromise, whereby I have the sharpening, colour boost and noise reductions turned off in camera, then I add after to taste, but at least I have the RAWs for later. It is a pain. That said I'm lucky in that's it's a hobby for me so I'm more than happy to spend a bit of time in PP and workflow isn't too much of an issue. Must be a reet pain when it's your job though.DanH said:
Simpo Two said:
The only thing stopping me from getting one and relegating the D200 to back-up is that I can't find software I like for processing D300 NEFs. My needs are very simple but the writers seem to prefer making sexy interfaces, gimmicks I don't want and clunky batch workflows.
NEFs are my only source of pain too. CaptureNX software is noticeably better than lightroom for its output and ease of getting a good result without doing a thing to it, but it has such awful workflow. Lightroom has nice workflow but sometimes I simply can't get the lovely picture that I can see in NX no matter how much I fiddle. I hear lightroom 2 may be better, but whilst the manufacturers keep this stuff proprietary and don't want to play its the user who suffers. I guess Nikon don't want their logic used to improve Canon shots and vice versa? Still, whats different between D200 and D300 NEFS? Surely they are all well supported now?
Well I'm glad it's not just me 
ked it up with sexy interfaces and gadgets! The thing with software is that once they've got it working perfectly, they have to keep twiddling with it to get a newer 'better' version - which is often worse than what went before it. Or so it seems.
DanH said:
Still, whats different between D200 and D300 NEFS? Surely they are all well supported now?
Every Nikon DSLR produces a slightly different kind of RAW file. I suppose it's called 'continuous product improvement'. I use C1 Pro V3, which is brilliant for D200 NEFs but won't see D300 NEFs. V4 Pro is out now so I guess I'll have to get that, but I do hope they haven't fked it up with sexy interfaces and gadgets! The thing with software is that once they've got it working perfectly, they have to keep twiddling with it to get a newer 'better' version - which is often worse than what went before it. Or so it seems.
beano500 said:
Good to hear those positive comments about Nokin! 
With Lightroom 2 and NEFs, I find the (relatively newly released) beta profiles are a real step forward. Others might find they solve that dilemma about getting good results straight out of the tin...
Will have to give it a shot I guess.With Lightroom 2 and NEFs, I find the (relatively newly released) beta profiles are a real step forward. Others might find they solve that dilemma about getting good results straight out of the tin...
I have a problem with adobe + apple products on vista 64. They don't seem to update or be able to patch. In fact get the same with nikon stuff too. What is wrong with these companies?
Does lightroom manage to stack the images if I take both raw + jpeg or does it look like lots of doubled up shots? I'm thinking of going jpeg too and keeping RAW for when I need to salvage a mistake. I guess it eats more buffer than just taking one type?
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