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729 of 765 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible color, tone, highlights/shadow rendition: this Nikon is best of breed!, November 29, 2007
Since 2006 I have owned a D200 for serious shooting situations and I got a D40 in early '07 for everyday shots (an awesome camera - I give it SIX stars! - a whole separate review is needed!), and after hearing about the D300 release in late 2007 I debated over whether to get one. I was really happy with my D200, which I took on some overseas trips and it performed perfectly. After demo-ing a D300 in stores and reading some online reviews, I decided to take the plunge. It was a big investment but now I have no regrets - if not for the entire package, then for one thing: COLOR! Or one more thing: what Nikon calls 'Active D-Lighting' (translation: a significant change in the processor's realistic rendition of contrast, highlights, shadows, etc. - the entire package of "TONE"). Also - can an LCD rear-screen get any better than this?? In Jim Cramer-parlance I have to say that this model is definitely "best of breed".
Pluses and minuses: (note: edited every once in a while since I've used it for almost 6 months now and thousands of captures - last edit was done on 4/9/08)
PLUSES:
- Incredibly vivid, pleasingly, really surprisingly saturated color reminiscent of Velvia (high-saturation Fuji film used in slides, etc.) is now made possible by selecting the "Vivid" option in the "Picture Control" menu and cranking up the "Saturation" option - there are three levels beyond the default "0" - which sets it just about at the highest possible saturation that could be set in the D200. Even boring photos of things around the home, outside, etc. seem interesting and... well, exciting and vivid... with it set at +2 or +3 (although the +3 setting is a bit extreme for people photos, and renders their skin color a bit more intense than appears naturally). At the +3 setting even blase photos of ordinary things approach purposely-understated "art" in a MoMA-like way. For people I am finding Vivid+1 or Vivid+2 a bit more natural indoors with natural light, as the Vivid+3 saturates just a bit more than I prefer. Just like Velvia, these settings also do not warm the cool colors - one of the minuses of other cameras' 'vivid' settings - this is what's best (your cool blues, greys, greens, etc. stay cool, while the reds, yellows, oranges, bright blues/greens/etc. - watch out!) (Edited note: after about 3,000 shots I saw that indoors it might be best to do a manual white balance preset off a white wall or carpet or something and then shoot in vivid mode, since in the automatic WB mode the reds tend to get boosted quite a bit under typical indoor light and some of my subjects looked like they had a very dark suntan, or even a sunburn, in the middle of December! Careful with this... also tried standard - i.e. not vivid - color settings with +1 or +2 saturation, and these were very realistic, although the backgrounds can be dull if you're intent on vivid colors all-around. Maybe best to use those on portraits only. Try them all out and see what works best.)
- On-board so-called "Active D-Lighting" renders shadows and highlights in an very realistic manner, with no raising up of delicate shadow tones to mid-levels (as my outstanding, near-perfect-in-its-class Nikon D40 tends to do) - this really must be seen to be believed. Coupled with the color quality (and deep saturation noted above), the detail in the highlights is excellent. The D40/D200 have this feature in post-capture (i.e. you adjust the captured image yourself) but this seemed rather crude; here it is said that the Nikon actually computes the needed adjustment and does it specifically for the scene you've captured. No more blown or off-color highlights in those 'rare' occasions when overexposure seeps into a shot in a very contrasty frame.
- The new LCD screen is 3" in size and has a whopping 920,000 pixels (versus 230,000 for the D200, D80, D40, etc.) of resolution - which means image review to check focus, color, etc. is impossibly accurate and well beyond the already very high quality of Nikon's 2.5 inch screens and way, way beyond that of the Canons with the greenish-greyish-tinted LCDs even on expensive models like the much-venerated full-frame 5D. Doesn't even come with a LCD protector cover like the D200 did because it's made with tempered glass and is super resistant to scratching, damage, etc. No more looking through plastic - however transparent - when reviewing shots or setting colors, lighting, etc. (Kind of always bothered me, that.)
- 100% coverage viewfinder - excellent, and not cluttered up, making composition cleaner; nothing engraved in the viewfinder to get in the way (although you can optionally set the horizon-level grid to be on all the time, which I do, since it leaves an open space in the middle anyway, and those off-balance shots are a pain to fix).
- 51-points of autofocus available - at first I didn't really care much as I tend to do the old-school method of using one point for focus, then recomposing - but I started using the 51-point AF mode (the full-rectange setting that uses all sensors) and found that I don't need to do this as the D300 always seems to pick the object I wanted to focus on - making things much, much easier - although for really unusual shots with a subject in focus and others way out of focus, I move to the manual mode; the AF system is excellent in speed and accurate tracking of the object of focus as well (i.e. a running child, etc.) The 51 points make this very easy to do. Fiddling around in the store I saw on the big $5k D3 the points are better looking (little red spots) and less intrusive when composing than these large-ish black rectangles on the D300, but I can live with that (although it reminds me "hey, you don't have a D3!...").
- There were issues about firmware and exposure on the D40, D80, where they tended to expose too brightly, and we had to set it manually to -0.3 or -0.7 to get back to normal exposure. Not on the D300. Perfect all-around. Still, adjusting WB and exposure can make or break the shot. Especially nice is the cloudy or 'shadow' setting for indoor shots in bright sunlight; everything looks pleasingly warm, even if just a tinge more than natural. Give it a try if you like warm colors. Interesting shots can be had using 'tungsten' outside in the snow - a blue-grey monochromatic world. (If you have snow, that is.) Manual WB setting is easy off of a wall, or carpet, or napkin, etc. as usual with the Nikons in this range, and makes quite a bit of difference in odd-lighting situations (i.e. very dim room, etc.) where the automatic presets, although excellent, don't work well (especially that 'tungsten' - in normal home incandescent lighting in the evening everything is medium-blued-out - who uses this? Or am I using it incorrectly? I set WB in that situation off the wall or rug.)
- other than the full-frame sensor (no small difference, that is) and high FPS, there appears, from what I am reading, to be no major differences (unless you're a sports or news shooter) from the highly-lauded D3, which costs 3x what the D300 costs; the D3's awesome high ISO performance can be mimicked by turning off the high ISO noise reduction set "on" in the default mode in the D300 (see below) Of course, the D3 has many other features that make it best for pro sports shooters, etc. who need that size and power, and of course, full-frame has no comparison - but I have a bag full of DX lenses (and some non-DX primes) and not ready to put out $10k+ for a D3 plus a 14-24, the new 24-70 and the 70-200, etc. that I'd want. The differences in picture quality due to the full-frame sensor (and other features I wouldn't need as I don't shoot sports or news) are outweighed by the cost involved and the marginal nature of the difference overall. Image quality is essentially the same - except for the pluses of the full-frame, especially noticeable in really big prints. Also the usual full-frame focal length versus DX issue remains alive here - yes, that "35mm on a DX is equivalent to a..." continues, and probably will as long as DX lenses remain in our bags. Edit: I have tried the D3 for a shooting session and it does focus incredibly fast, much faster than the D300 in some cases. The speed of the focusing and the shutter itself are unbelievable; that camera is the Ferrari or Lamborghini of Nikons. The D300 may be the Porsche - hey, not a bad compromise - it's unlikely that the average pro-sumer will need the power of the D3 (or of a Ferrari - ever try to do 140mph on the NJ Turnpike?).
These were my big main pluses which justified the transition from the D200, but there are a few more which don't really appeal to me but will for some:
- Live View (you can see the image on the LCD screen) - perhaps this might appeal to a tripod-user setting up a photo, but I doubt I'll ever use it. Smacks of "point-and-shoot", I think, but could be handy in some cases where it is hard to position the eye at the viewfinder (behind the sofa?...) (Edited note: should not have panned this - gave the camera to my 21 year old niece, who tried to take a Christmas portrait of my family and I together - and got half of us in the bottom of the frame, and an empty top half of the frame! - for those who basically grew up using live view digital cameras, this feature is very useful - just set it and let them shoot - I think the weight of the D300 and the fact that she had to use a (gasp!) viewfinder (as opposed to the RAZR internal cellphone camera) threw her off. Some creative cropping may save the shot, anyway.)
- Ultrasonic Sensor Cleaner - like the Canons and Pentaxes, Sonys, etc., Nikon finally offers a sensor cleaner (which is user-operated, not constantly running at each power-up if you set it that way). Might be useful after hard shooting in dusty or otherwise...
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317 of 331 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The camera I waited for, November 29, 2007
Until recently I had a D80 and I also wrote a review about it. So I think it would be useful for you, D80 owners and D300 prospect buyers, to have some clues about what this D300 is about from a former D80 user. I will update my review as I'll be getting into more and more of this camera.
First noticeable difference is the size. The D300 is bigger and heavier than the D80, but the size it is not a problem for mid-sized hands like mine are. About weight: I bought a neoprene strap some time ago for my D80. I use it also on the D300. The strap which is included with the camera is a bit too rough for my skin and the weight of camera can be a real pain if you carry it on too long. Any neoprene strap will do, just choose one which is a bit more elastic and has a smooth internal layer (touch it, it is important to do that BEFORE you buy it).
You won't notice any important difference in the feeling of the grip size, although it is a bit bulkier, because the body has been reshaped in the back of the camera so it is easy to hold it even with one hand. On the back, there is a handy AF-ON button which is completely in the reach of your thumb and the AE-L/ AF-L button is not far from it either. The body has a rubbery feel which is different than the D80 (more plastic) and lays comfortable in your hands giving you the sensation of a good grip.
Controls: One thing that annoys most photographers is to have to lower the camera from their eyes very often when they change some settings. You will not have a mode dial, like in D80, just a button and only 4 modes that will be displayed in the viewfinder; this is a pro camera, the amateur-like modes (portrait, night etc) are gone. It will be very nice for you to know that you don't have to change white balance, ISO and picture quality settings by looking at the back of the camera (like on the D80) to find the buttons. They are on the top, like on D200, which I think it is very convenient because they are arranged in a triangle shape and you can get to your needed button without removing the camera from your eye, because you will remember quite quickly the location of each button: front the quality, left the white balance, right the ISO. Moreover, ISO setting is displayed in the viewfinder and you'll be quite amazed to find how useful this little feature is ! On the D80 I had to use and push the custom function button to see this or to look on top, on the LCD display. On top right are only two buttons: to the left is the mode, to the right is the exposure compensation (use this with caution with matrix metering). Voila, with four buttons you control the most important settings for taking pictures, and, best of all, you know their location without having to look at them. What needs special attention is the release mode dial, is the one you have to look at when changing modes. The rest of lever controls have only three positions so it's very easy to know which one position is which.
The build quality is outstanding, it looks and feels like a tank. Remember that, with camera, you are getting an environmental sealing which is not the case for the D80/40/40x. Combine that with a sealed lens like the 17-55DX f/2.8 and you'll gone have a very nice combo even in bad weather. Is that important ? Yes, it is. Otherwise you have to take care all the time and protect your camera from water drops, dust and snowflakes. The sound of the shutter is softer (more silent) than on the D80, probably because of some other materials were used for building the mirror holder and the shutter.
ISO, noise: The noise at high ISO is outstanding. When I purchased the D80 I found myself very often wanting to shoot in lowlight conditions and I got a Nikon SB800 for that. However, using flash to some extent annoys people and high ISO was mandatory in such situations. Now you can use ISO 3200 with 100% confidence and getting low noise, well-detailed photos with good saturated colors will be a rule. ISO 1600 is almost noise free, you can see it at pixel peeping but for prints it is non-existent. More important than low noise is detail preservation at high ISO. The 2 more megapixels also help. What helps most on the field is the Auto ISO feature, something that I have never used on the D80. I took shots using a minimum shutter speed of 1/50 s and ISO as high as 2000. That gives you a very wide range of exposure options without being afraid of noise and lost details. One advice, though: be sure to set high ISO noise reduction to low or none (in the menus). You can always remove any noise with a software but never can recover lost details. For noise removal I strongly recommend Nik Software Dfine 2.0 plugin for Adobe Photoshop or Imagenomics Noiseware. In my opinion, the ISO 3200 is a blessing. That means you can take photos in rooms lit with 60W light bulbs without having to cry for blotchy images. If on the D80 ISO 3200 was good (in my opinion) for 6x4 prints and black and white larger images, with D300 you can go far beyond that. Image quality wise, ISO 6400 on the D300 is almost on par with ISO 1600 on the D80, and, more important, using a noise reduction software you can get very good looking images out of ISO 6400 pictures.
Metering: no more complaints for "matrix overexposure" fans, although I always felt that this "overexposure" is more related to poor usage of this metering mode on the D80. On D300, the matrix is spot on, and you'll like it as much as I do, on sunny, cloudy, evening and artificial light, including the TTL mode on flash.
Focus: this will hit you. Actually nobody could understand (neither did I) what a pro-level focusing system means until you'll be using one. No more hit and miss, no more problems on portrait compositions, no more problems of focusing with AF points other than the central one. The settings menu will give you a plethora of possible focus combinations, and memory banks to save your settings for quick selection. When you'll get your D300, do this test: on continuous servo high speed, track a car. You could make a movie with those sharp images.
Colors: I have a habbit, I always shoot in Adobe RGB mode. It is the best way to do when you are after the most color information from one scene. Moreover, even if you have aRGB jpegs, you can always assign a different lower-gamut profile in Adobe Photoshop CS3 or other image editing software. The colors ARE different than the D80's: closer to the warm side of the spectrum, gone is the sometime-magenta cast that you once noticed on your D80 especially under bright sun. The colors ARE PERFECT. So perfect that you can distinguish between subtle tonalities on flowers, skin tones and complexions, to a much better extent than with the D80. The shadows won't have any bluish creep anymore, dark is dark, black is black, maroon is maroon etc. Even at high ISO, the noise is more luminance than bluish. Again, you have a entire army of in-camera settings for colors, brilliance, contrast, hue ... you can customize your preferences for image rendition, you can save more than neutral-vivid-black and white modes personal settings for color and luminance settings. There is only one single exception to this perfection which you have to consider: when using dynamic D-lighting mode, colors tend to get more saturated as high as you get with your D-lightings settings. On RAWs (NEFs) this is easily corrected in your raw processing software, but on jpegs and tiffs, quite difficult.
RAW mode: Please, please use Nikon Capture NX Software for Windows and Mac or ACR from Adobe Photoshop CS3. The results with Lightroom are horrendous in terms of noise reduction. I don't know why, it should have the same RAW engine as Photoshop CS3. UPDATE: These problems seem to come from preproduction firmware NEFs. I found no more problems opening NEFs in Lightroom with a production firmware camera.
Please remember that the first 300.000 D300 sold also have a license for Capture NX included in the box (I also got it) so you won't have to spend on licenss. I like the way this software renders colors and noise even if it does not have the most impressive interface one ever built. One more advantage with Capture NX 1.3: you have a new "Picture Control" menu under "Camera Settings" which you can use to add custom picture settings to the D300 (and name them as you want "less vivid", "more neutral" etc) and a custom-curve editor that you can use to add more control to your custom picture preset. Moreover, the 1.3 version of NX picture control options come with some D2x-image-like presets that are great for rendering skin tones in portraits.
Memory Card: if you shoot in 14-bit mode (recommended if you shoot RAW or TIFF and have to shoot high dynamic scenes), please remember that the RAW files, uncompressed, are somewhere around 25 MB each. Get a fast card. I bought a SanDisk 4 GB Extreme IV CompactFlash Card, that supports 40MB/s transfer. It runs smoothly, the camera buffer will not clog. Take care: 25 MB NEF file will stress your computer out and squeeze all resources from it. You need at least 2 GB of RAM (I have 4), and a fast processor. I have a Core2Duo 6300 plus win XP 64 bit edition to avoid RAM limitation. Update May 7, 2008: I bought also a 8GB 300x UDMA Lexar CF card to have another CF card for my camera and it seems to me that the write and read speed on the Lexar is inferior to the...
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206 of 219 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
POW!, December 7, 2007
Before the D300 (and, sooner rather than later, the D3) I'd been giving serious thought to switching to Canon gear. I'd seen what the Canon 5D could do with sharpness and color--results I just couldn't get out of my Nikon D200. When Nikon announced the D300 and D3, I was skeptical. The D3 looked great, but is out of my price range for now. And the D300 seemed, at best, an evolutionary improvement over the D200.
But I have an awful lot of money invested in Nikon gear, so I figured I'd give the D300 a shot. After all, I could always return it to Amazon for a full refund.
First impression? The D300 is anything but evolutionary--it's a full-scale revolution for Nikon, and it's forever banished thoughts of Canon from my mind.
Just shooting around the house, I find that the D300 can render colors, even true-looking, vibrant reds, like nothing short of Fuji's super-best Velvia film. Soon I'l turn it loose at Garden of the Gods and we'll see what it can really do. Best of all, the D300 can produce wild colors *and* natural skin tones--in the same shot! I don't understand how that's possible, since jacking up a camera's color vibrancy usually ruins people's skin. But Nikon has done it.
I'm especially fond of Nikon's menus and user controls. They're much more intuitive than Canon, at least to me. And even though there is a wealth of new features compared to the D200, I've managed to discover them all--and learn them all--without ever once cracking open the user's manual. Talk about intuitive!
About those new features... wow! Multi-level zoom on the back screen, so you'll never doubt whether your shots are in focus or not. The screen itself is huge, and features the highest pixel density of any LCD screen anywhere. Your shots will look amazing, even before you get prints made. Dozens of other features with varying degrees of usefulness, I'll let more involved reviewers tell you about those.
What counts for me is bold colors, great looking skin, and a camera that won't ever distract me from my shot, by forcing me to think about *how* to make the shot. The D300 delivers on all three counts.
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