D300 - Initial observations

Summary first - it's a class and a half above the D80 and well worth the extra. It means that the user is much

more in charge of the camera, rather than the other way round - which is the way I like it.

 

The biggie for me is metering. Bottom line - much much better than the D80. For identical scenes with the

focusing point over a neutral tone, the D300 exposes between 1/3 to 2/3 stop darker than the D80 and does not

blow the highlights like the D80 does in the same scene. This tends to reinforce the conventional wisdom of

dialing in -0.7ev on the D80.

 

More dedicated buttons = less menu fiddling = faster operation - with the caveat that the D80 menu system is

easier to find one's way around than the D300's in my opinion

 

Picture controls work great: I can set up different options for portrait, landscape, indoor etc. Neutral,

saturation +1, auto contrast, brightness 0, ADL = off is returning some nice results.

 

The extra weight is not an issue: an Op-Tech strap takes a lot of the strain; the build makes the D50 & D80 seem

very plasticky in comparison.

 

Focusing speed not dramatically better than the D80, but those 51 focusing points make composition much easier -

much less focus & recompose now.

 

So the good news is that the D300 allows the user to concentrate much more on image making rather than worrying

about whether the camera is going to do something silly that you don't expect. In other words, it doesn't get in

the way - which is all one can really ask of a camera!

 

More comparisons to follow when I've looked at sharpness, noise, colour and tone.

Simon, it will be nice to see some comparison test shots when you get a chance. Yeah, you're gonna love this camera.

Simon, Your observations are appreciated and valued. Is there a reason you created another thread rather than continue your previous - I purchased a D300? Are we to expect a third - Here are pictures thread? :-) Passion is imperative, community is essential to the human psyche. Please do not misunderstand me- the two threads are just confusing to me personally. FWIW.

Simon,

 

Glad you like the new camera. When you get the chance I'd be very interested to know what the matrix meter does

when ADL is off and the contrast is so high that shadows and highlights can't both be accommodated on the

histogram - for example into the light with a bright sky and white clouds visible. Does it:

 

1. Preserve the shadows and blow the highlights.

 

2. Preserve the highlights and allow the shadows to block up.

 

3. Compromise with a bit of each.

 

My D40 definitely does the first and it's not very affected by what's under the focus spot. It must have been a

design decision to do this since the dark shadows always seem to sit very precisely on the extreme left of the

histogram. With less contrasty light the shadows tend to move up towards the centre of the histogram and the

highlights down and I'm pretty happy with this aspect. The blown highlights usually only occur when the contrast

is too high for the camera to manage the whole tonal range.

 

Thanks,

 

Richard

Ed, I think it is safe to say that Simon is excited about the D300. We should all cut him some slack.

 

Simon, not sure whether you use (exposure) bracketing or not. A minor problem on the D300 is the lack of a dedicated BKT button, and a number of people have unintentionally switched on bracketing.

Shun, I agree - That is why I put a smiley :-) To repeat - Passion is imperative, community is essential to the human psyche. I do not want to, nor did I intend to squelch the passion, I do want to see photos; however I do think upon further thought, would you want to see two threads for everyone who purchases a D300? Simon let us see photos of your experience! :-) PS Shun, I have observed your comments for 6 months, and your lucid comments have improved my photographic decisions. Thank you.

Please notice people are still responding to the original thread and we have bifurcated the thought with no interaction within the original thread. Just an attempt at a positive housekeeping thought . . . Now OFF to hone the craft and passion with a D200 and a Fugi S3 Pro @ Getteysburg PA . . . :-) Simon NO disrespect intended. We ALL know what it feels like to enjoy a new purchase!

I've been thinking lately of moving from the D80 to the D300 too, which is a little crazy I know. The D80 is a great camera in its own right. More than likely I would keep my D80 because I'm not sure I could part with it. However, I was surprised about the lack of a bracket button since my D80 has it. Does that mean you have to go through a menu to turn the function on and off? If so, is there any way around it? It just seems strange that Nikon would make a more expensive camera less convenient, at least for this one function. I've learned to use the bracket feature a lot.

I'm pretty new to DSLR speak so maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by a "bracket button" but the function

button on the front of the D300 can be programmed so you can press it and use the two dials to setup exposure

bracketing.

 

--Wade

No worries Ed. Anyway, here are some preliminary test results - with pictures! All shot with the 50mm f1.8, hand held, sat down with arms braced on arms of chair. NR turned off where possible. I should have used a tripod, but rain was threatening, so speed was important. Some adjustments for white balance. All images sized to 4288 wide (the D80 & D50 images upsized in NX2). As an aside, the auto white balance exposes 'greener' on the D50 and is even greener at the same colour temperature (5500) as the other cameras.

 

I also played around with ADL. Definitely more noise with it set to High or Normal, but not much difference with it set to Low. Also, when set to Low, exposure reduced by 1/3rd stop. I think it was 2/3 stop when set to Normal. Anyway, here are the samples.<div></div>

Next image<div></div>

Next image - D300 ISO 1600<div></div>

D80 ISO 200 crop<div></div>

I mean D80. Next is the D80 at ISO 1600<div></div>

D50 ISO 200 next<div></div>

Finally, D50 ISO 1600<div></div>

The interesting thing for me is the D80 result at ISO 1600. Yes, there's less noise than one might expect, but there's also less detail. The upsized D50 images hold up surprisingly well. Overall, while there are clear differences, each camera delivers at its respective price point - and the D50 does spectacularly well. I'm guessing the D40 performs on a par with the D50.

Richard, when we get some more sun, I'll have a go at the scenario you suggest.

One more picture. This time, I've taken the ISO 1600 D300 image and applied 30% noise reduction in NX2 (sharpness = 9). Colour noise has gone, but there's still good detail.

Here's the image...<div></div>

Very interesting, Simon. You have me considering the D300, giving up my D80, and keeping my D70, which despite the

awful viewfinder, effortlessly produces very pleasing JPEG images right out of the camera.

 

Anxiously awaiting further analysis.

Thanks for those Simon.

 

There are several interesting points.

 

I think this is the first time I've seen an upsized 6 MP photograph directly compared with a 12 MP one. I pulled

the images out and compared them side by side. AT ISO 200 I can see that the D300 is a little sharper than the

D50 with the D80 much like the D300 - much as one would expect. On my monitor these will be 46 inch prints so

the D50 seems pretty good.

 

I thought that the D50 ISO 200 shots looked denser than the D80 and D300 ones and this is confirmed by the

histograms. I see from the EXIF data that the D80 and D300 have the same exposure but the D50 received 1/3 stop

less so the difference in density is probably explained. Interesting too that on this scene the D80 and D300 are

metering identically.

 

At ISO 1600 there is the same difference in exposure but this time I see a shift in colour balance towards blue

for both D80 and D300 but less shift for the D50. This seems odd - does anyone else see that I wonder?

 

At ISO 1600 I would have expected the D50 to look rather better relative to the D80 than it does but this may

possibly be explained by the reduced exposure and also by the upsizing will tend to make the individual noisy

pixels larger and the noise perhaps more prominent. But then again most other comparisons I've seen are on noise

reduced in camera JPEGs and these aren't noise reduced.

Thanks Richard. Below is the upsized D50 ISO 1600 image where I applied NX2 noise reduction BEFORE upsizing. A

much better result I think.

 

To follow shortly will be some D300 shots where I check out the metering in high dynamic range situations.<div></div>

Here is the higher dynamic range test. D300, Tamron 17-50mm, 27mm setting, 1/640th, f11, ISO 200, ADL = off, PIC = Neutral, auto contrast, saturation +1. Focusing point was top right of leftmost tree. Matrix metering, no exposure compensation. RAW file converted in NX2. I see very nice tonal gradations in the clouds. The trees were backlit.<div></div>

That's pretty impressive although the large area of sky may have helped prevent overexposure.

 

What would have happened do you think with something like this, which was also backlit:

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/7477178

 

I had to set compensation of -1.3 on the D40 shooting JPEG and later recovered the foreground with a contrast

mask. (The exposure is rather long because of a polarising filter).