Nikon D300 Review
January 23rd, 2008
There have been fireworks from Nikon at the end of 2007. The D3, D300, some darn good lenses and marketing to match. I own 2 D300's, so I thought I'd write a post about this gorgeous camera. Coming from the D80, the D300 is a big piece of camera. It's heavier, clunkier, but fits wonderfully in my hand. The big 3" monitor is beautiful, as is the viewfinder and it's responsiveness. The things I particularly liked were
- fast scrolling within a zoomed picture on the built-in monitor
- Nice ergonomics, both physical and software
- large, detailed, color-accurate monitor
- responsive, fast shutter. Goes to 1/8000
- ISO up to 1600 is good and can be pushed to 6400 by sacrificing color clarity and image sharpness
- price, considering what it can do
- has a built-in flash to trigger slave flashes (in contrast to the D3)
- DX-format, so I can still use all my DX lenses (as opposed to FX)
- has dedicated switches and buttons for a lot of functions for quick access: Metering type, AF on, AF type, etc.
- accurate, fast auto-focus, even off-center. Having 51 focus points is really useful when composing with fast lenses. Off-center focusing was an issue with the D80.
- It would have been nice to have the D3's ISO range. 1600 is limiting.
- annoyingly loud, snappy shutter
- Button placement different from the D80, so using both cameras at the same time requires some thinking to adapt to the specific model
- ISO needs to hands to adjust. Remember when film cameras had a dial knob to do this? At that time, this was hardly necessary, since ISO was usually set once per film. Now when quick ISO adjustments are necessary, there's just an ISO button when also requires a dial and looking at the top display to adjust. Same with white balance.>> Nikon: I NEED dedicated rotary knobs for ISO and white balance <<I change them so often that anything else is just a power-hassle.
Write a comment