sweeper's Full Review: Nikon D300 Digital Camera with 18-200mm lens
My timing, for once, was spot on. I tend to upgrade my primary shooter every four years or so. The last time was to acquire my first digital SLR, a Nikon D70 (the original model) that had been then named “Popular Photography” magazine’s Camera of the Year in 2004. It remains a great camera and one that creates great images today. But not by me. I sold it to a buddy in order to buy Nikon’s D300 which appeared just before a search for an upgrade. It came at the perfect time and I picked Nikon’s latest which just happens to be Pop Photo’s pick for 2007 Camera of the Year. And for good reasons.
The D300 plays in a highly competitive league of worthy models including the Canon EOS 40D, Sony Alpha 700, Olympus E-3, Panasonic Lumix L10, Fujifilm Finepix S5, Sigma SD14, and Pentax K100. Each one of the competitors is capable of producing fantastic images and there is plenty of proof on print and on the Web. Each one offers a superlative feature or two that is the envy of others. The Canon and to a great extent, the Sony, are the most challenging to Nikon’s model which, to me and many others including users of different systems, sits on top of the leader board. While you may read fan-boy comments denigrating the products of makers other than their own, I love when the increasingly growing field of dSLR makers nip at Nikon’s heal. It only means Nikon has to do better. My shooting pals and I will be the ones who gain.
I am enjoying using the camera and, better yet, enjoying the images it produces. And for once, I am shooting as near a pro-level SLR camera as I’ll ever be. This isn’t an ego statement or an implication that I am able to shoot like a pro. It’s a statement based on the fact that there are no hardware issues to blame for any less-than-stellar pictures I produce. As it’s been said before, the best cameras are the one that don’t get in the way of a great shot. The Nikon D300 is one of those cameras.
This review will not cover all or even a significant fraction of the D300’s capabilities. Attempting to do so would be foolish. To wit, a list the camera’s custom settings requires three pages. The manual itself is more than 400 pages. What I will address are the camera’s highlights, and why, despite some lowlights, I really like it.
Who it's for
The Nikon D300 is intended for current Nikon users who are married to legacy equipment and want to move up to the most capable Nikon makes in the DX sensor format. The Nikon D300 makes a reasonable backup for the pro-level D3 with its nearly identical feature set and “manual-of-arms.” The D300 should also be considered by production houses that need a near-pro level camera that is fully capable and will stand the wear of full-time production use. The D300 finally shuts down the remaining excuses for any 35mm film camera holdouts not to go digital – this camera, I’m both happy and sad to mention, surpasses the capability of the last great 35mm cameras in most (but admittedly not all) ways. The D300 is not for the student photographer who isn’t comfortable with camera fundamentals and the way setting parameters affect other parameters. They would do better for themselves and their bank accounts to select the Nikon D40, D40x or the new D60 all of which are capable of producing nearly identical images as those produced by the D300.
Handling
While many shooters dwell on performance as a camera’s most important feature, I consider handling equally important. Having owned seven SLRs from two different makers and used many more has made me aware of handling upsides and downsides. One grows to love the positive and loathe but put up with the negative. As one who loves to trek and hike for hours with a camera at hand, the tactile sensation, the “feel” of the camera becomes a very personal experience. The D300 fits and feels very natural in my hand. Previous Nikon DX00 SLR users will find it familiar. It’s nearly identical in fit and form to the D200. Users moving up from the DXX models will find it significantly heavier. All Nikon dSLR users will find the control placements similar to older models. The magnesium chassis contributes to the weight which, to me, reminds me of my old and beloved N8008s with its reassuring and stabilizing heft. If you’ve read my reviews on cameras, you know that I’m not a fan of lightweight cameras for lightweight’s sake.
The D300 is covered with a rubberized, pebbly surface that affords good grip even with sweating palms. Furthermore the beveled lower corner opposite the shutter control accommodates (and encourages) the proper way to hold a camera when shooting. That is, the left hand should cradle the lens which not only stabilizes the camera but also puts the fingers in the proper position for controlling the zoom and focus rings. So many (too many) shooters hold an SLR like a steering wheel which negates use of their left hand fingers. What are they teaching in schools these days?
While this particular model and the simultaneously released, professional D3 share the title of world’s most complex still camera, Nikon continues to be sensitive to the way users access controls and settings. Part of a camera’s handling measure is how the users do so. Nikon’s approach to this has been providing direct assess to more controls via buttons and dials rather than through menus as is the case with its competitors. Not that Nikon’s D300 menu options aren’t the most comprehensive in the market (they are) but the D300 puts the most accessed options a touch or two away rather than buried deep in a menu selection. For example, rather than having to dive into menus to access the three most common controls, ISO, quality, and white balance, Nikon has provided a mechanical switch on the body. Conveniently, Nikon moved those buttons from a good position in the back to a better position on the top. Even the top LCD illumination control was integrated smartly into the power switch so that the user simply has to rotate the on button a few degrees momentarily to turn it on. In that vein, Nikon continues to refine camera ergonomics and control and I haven’t seen nor heard of a better user interface.
Displays
The user interface continues with the displays in the viewfinder, top LCD and the monitor. The viewfinder display is mostly unchanged from previous models which is a good thing. Critical settings are shown including metering mode, aperture and shutter speed. For the D300, ISO is also displayed. This is important because of a great new feature, ISO sensitivity settings, allows the camera to bump up the ISO sensitivity but preserve a user-selected limit of low shutter speed and highest ISO. This allows the shooter to shoot at a preferred and controlled ISO but also in dimmer light situations by boosting the ISO in a set range. I used this capability just this last weekend at an outdoor graduation ceremony. I was shooting groups in full sunshine at ISO 200. I then spied family members 30 yards away in a great group hug around their graduated son with everyone standing in deep shade. Without having to adjust the ISO, I racked out the zoom lens and made the shot without having to worry that my shutter speed would be too slow to freeze the action. That is a truly cool application of a truly cool capability which I’ve never had before in an SLR. The top LCD, again, is familiar to Nikon users and whose information can be repeated in the monitor by simply pushing a single button. No more tiptoeing around tripod-mounted cameras. Finally, the three-inch monitor on the back is the most lusciously gorgeous I have ever seen on the back of any camera anywhere. Its 920,000 pixel, VGA screen is sharp enough to provide focus confirmation on playback. In some cases the menu text is smaller than on my previous Nikon dSLR but far more legible because it’s so crisp. Indeed, one look at an image or menu in the monitor will be a visual revelation.
Notable features and what they mean
I’ll discuss notable features and their value.
Fifty-One focus points and 3D focus tracking – I’m still getting used to this. It has some value when combined with continuous mode and shooting unpredictably moving objects such as a soccer player on a field. Or my cat. When the system works, it works well.
Self-cleaning sensor – I haven’t spotted any dust marks so I can’t say it doesn’t work.
Auto ISO sensitivity adjustment – As I mentioned above, this is a great feature similar to what is common on many point-and-shoots with the added benefit of user-selectable limits. Nice nice nice.
Higher sensor sensitivity – which implies lower noise at lower ISO settings. For the first time, I’m shooting at ISO 800 without reservation and concern about noise. Even up to ISO 1600, I’m getting images with less noise than I did with my Nikon D70 set at ISO 400 in similar situations. I’m delighted with the D300’s noise mitigation performance and am excited at the prospect of doing more night shoots.
Touch twice image erase capability – Such a simple process finally done right. Now one has to hit the same erase button twice to delete a picture. Why was this ability so long in coming?
Live View – To me, a take-it or leave-it feature. The live view feature allows a live view on the monitor similar to that on point-and-shoots. Sure there is some convenience involved here but it’s not a compelling benefit. Even when I shoot products, the optical viewfinder is where I get my confirmation of composition. Which leads me to the next feature.
A 100% frame accuracy viewfinder at 94% magnification – A feature I’m experiencing for the first time in my life on an SLR and loving it completely. My other camera viewfinders, as nice as they were, were always showing less than 100% and my pictures typically included unwanted elements and frame mergers which needed post processing to crop out. A 100% really eliminates an annoying post production step.
Expeed processing unit – This is the second-generation version of the camera’s image processing system. It’s extremely fast and lets me take up to 6-frames a second. Better still, it’s a significant part of Nikon’s most power miserly dSLR yet and allows up to 1000 shots (CIPA tested) per battery charge. That’s better than 250% more than its predecessor the D200 that uses the same battery. Wow.
New 12.3 mega-pixel sensor – At this pixel density, I am finally getting to realize the resolution of some of my better lenses. This is great. I’m finally leveraging some of my earlier investment in gear.
Selectable 12-bit or 14-bit capture options – I admit, I shoot most of my images as .jpgs. I only shoot RAW (Nikon NEF) on certain critical shots and bracket like a madman. This is one of my remaining vestigial habits from my film days. Frankly, I loathe the post-production routine and prefer to get the image in the camera. Photographers who “only shoot RAW” are bragging more about their abundant discretionary time than they are about actually shooting pictures. Shooting in the .jpg format lets me bypass a lot of computer work and the .jpgs I get from the D300 are superb. I have produced product shots on .jpg and have delighted clients. That’s should be enough testimony to the camera’s imaging capability. Still, 12- and 14-bits of color depth provide a lot more capability at controlling tones especially in the mid and darker range during post than when only having an 8-bit .jpg.
Customizable Shooting banks – Rather than providing a fixed set of setting parameters and calling them “Portrait”, “Landscape”, “Sports”, “Night”, etc., the D300 allows the shooter to set four different shooting “banks” with a set of parameters that control vividness, contrast, saturation, and hue in amazingly fine increments. For the first time, there is a practical and professional way to have pre-sets available rather than selecting parameters that a factory engineer believes is appropriate or going through and adjusting all the settings one by one. For me, my landscape settings are more vivid, more contrasty, and more saturated, than what I set for portraits. I also have a bank I call “Landscape RAW” which has similar settings but processes two files, a fine .jpg and an uncompressed RAW. The latter I may bracket and either blend or tone map into an HDR image but, again, that’s a rare case because it means time on the computer.
Chromatic aberration correction – an unadvertised feature that magically corrects lens aberration that results in the dreaded “purple fringe” especially in the image corners. I have no idea how it works. But it does. Initially I suspected it was built-in processing based on known Nikon lenses. That is, modern Nikon lenses have known markers that tell the camera what is mounted. Knowing that, processing can mitigate the aberration and provide a cleaner image. In a quick experiment, I mounted a modern but non-Nikon wide-angle lens which tend to be the worst offenders. I inspected the corners and I swear the fringing was not as apparent as it was on my D70. Amazing.
In the field
In the short time I’ve had the D300 I’ve shot products indoors, landscapes, informal portraits and a lot of happy snaps. Because I’ve sold all my digital camera to help cover the cost of the D300, the D300 will have to pay its way by becoming a jack-of-all-trades. My medium format film camera still covers any serious landscape work but, nevertheless, I’ll be giving the Nikon a workout in the country.
The lens I use most so far is the Nikon 18mm-200mm VR or what some are calling a “super-zoom” for its range of focal length. Equal to a 28mm-300mm in 35mm field of view, it’s a fantastic all-purpose lens with an amazing close focus distance of less than a foot. Watch for an upcoming review.
For my glove sized medium hands, I find the camera a perfect fit for me. The rubberized gripping surfaces become even handier when the palms begin to sweat. My Nikon experience carries on transparently with the D300 and I’m able to prepare and approach a shot as instinctively as with former models. I had been warned that the menu options were extensive and intimidating. Yet, I found that when I did have to get into the menu, navigating, finding and manipulating menu settings were more intuitive than I had been led to believe. The high-resolution monitor is a joy to use. Now that I’ve created the shooting banks I discussed above, I have more confidence in the outcome of my shots.
Although the 18-200 is a “VR” or Vibration Reduction lens meaning it actively compensates for and mitigates camera shake during exposure, I feel the camera’s heft itself goes a long way to stabilizing the lens/camera combo and helps get the sharp result. Regardless, the camera always goes on a tripod for critical shots. “Reduction” is not elimination and nobody gets rich delivering less than perfectly sharp images. Still, Nikon dropped the ball in one area. The camera features mirror lockup and a shutter release delay – but not both together.
On a hike, I especially enjoyed the ability to switch shooting banks going between shooting landscapes and then making a quick switch and shooting pictures of my wife. The digital advantage over film is that I’d often carry two cameras, one loaded with a high contrast, very saturated transparency film such as Velvia to shoot landscapes and a camera with a neutral rendition such as a Kodak print film to shoot close ups of people. Today I carry one camera and push two buttons instead.
Auto focusing is super quick using Nikon AF-S lenses or compatible lenses with internal focusing motors. The D300 will also work with nearly all Nikon AF lenses as well. If the lens is registered in the camera, it will not only verify focus with manually focus lenses but spot and matrix meter as well. Wow. This is a first and verifies that Nikon is faithful to those with legacy lenses that go back forty or more years. The D300 provides extra confidence in verifying exposure even with its already sophisticated exposure system. The playback mode provides a number of options including image only or a combination of other metadata. In addition to a summary histogram, I can inspect individual histograms of the red, blue, and green channels. With the D300, if you shoot a crummy picture, it’s because you deliberately wanted to.
Even with its heft, bringing along only one or two lenses when I used to carry three or four lenses creates an overall lighter bag. I really like this.
Stuff I don't like
Nikon wants $155 for a wireless remote shutter release control. Such a control comes free with the D70. And why couldn’t Nikon provide for a mechanical shutter release? There’s no excuse for Nikon not doing this. And despite the metal chassis and rubber armor that so faithfully protects the innards, Nikon has chosen to design flimsy doors for the battery and memory card compartments. The battery compartment door for my consumer level N8008s was far sturdier with a lock that prevented accidental release. Such design overlooks are irksome for a camera of this caliber. Finally, a long-running gripe I’ve had with Nikon SLRs since the days of auto-focusing yore is the number of controls placed all over to control focusing. In the D300’s case you have the legacy mechanical switch on the front of the camera that must be set to determine single-lock focus, continuous focus, or manual focus. Then there’s the switch on the back of the camera for single area focus, multiple area focus, and 3D focus using all 51-focus sensors. Then there’s the switch on the lens itself for auto focusing or manual focusing. And that’s not to mention the multi-toggle switch on the back of the camera that selects focus sensors. There’s got to be a better way. Admittedly, I understand that in various combinations of all those controls, the focusing behavior is different and there are probably situations where they are all needed.
As far as software goes, none of the included software including Nikon View is compatible with the Macintosh Leopard OS. And the software that WAS included, Capture NX, but is not included any longer isn't compatible either. So I'm saving a couple hundred dollars because Capture won't work for me. Other manufacturers include their RAW conversion software for free. Nikon representatives have told me "real soon now." Since February. By delaying, Nikon is annoying up to 20% of its D300 users. This is truly an irksome practice for a leading camera maker.
Finally, while the D300’s shutter mechanism has been tested to a pro-level 150,000 release cycles, it is louder than that in the D70 which isn’t a church mouse and would be intrusive in some settings. Wedding and event photographers might want to have a listen before buying.
Image Quality
Speaking of sharp images, the D300 is the first camera whose images have approached the quality I expect of decent 35mm film. Certainly, sharpness in the digital age is the result of the optical system, sensor, and processor. And it all seems to come together nicely on the D300. The 12 mega-pixels in this stage of sensor development seems to strike a good balance between resolution and image noise control. On a given sized sensor, in this case an APS or DX size, more pixels provide more resolution (to a point) but more pixels mean smaller pixel sites which yields a lower signal to noise ratio or simply, more noise to contend with. And the Nikon, more than any other camera in its class according to numerous tests, has tended to the noise problem better than the rest. And it shows. As I’ve mentioned, I’m not afraid to shoot at higher ISO settings.
To Nikon’s credit, it has tweaked internal image processing so that .jpgs come out nearly as nicely as I could do myself in post. Boosting saturation and sharpness doesn’t create the gaudy, blocky images that are so apparent on point and shoots and earlier dSLRs. For sure, the default sharpness setting should always be set at least one or two notches up if you’re shooting .jpgs unless you know you’re going to work on it later. Better to let Photoshop or a computer-based program do the sharpening. In color reproduction, what I get that is apparent in my landscape settings are smooth gradients with rich, saturated hues that nearly approach Velvia in character. Reds are especially done well. Yellows really pop without posterizing. Greens could use work. If Nikon could work the mojo to create those Velvia greens that are so inviting, I could put up with those flimsy doors easily.
Dave’s fearless prognostications
The Nikon D3 and D300 were introduced amidst a lot of hype of which a lot was deserved. However, Gordon Moore’s law affects digital cameras just as it does all other electronic devices and in three years, the two leading models from Nikon will seem quaint. However, they will be no less worthy just as my D70 introduced more than four years ago will continue to shoot great pictures. Still, sensor prices will decline and performance will increase to the point where full sized (Nikon calls them FX) sensors will become far more common. By the end of 2008, 22- or 24 mega pixel FX sensors will be spec’d and announced on at least three maker’s cameras. Physics will limit the number of pixels that can be squeezed on a sensor plane but pixels may be stacked or arranged Foveon style to increase resolution. Even so, the density will approach the limit of a lens capability to resolve. This condition may be met in as early as ten years. Interestingly, DX dSLRs may become specialized. A supply of already existing APS sized (Nikon calls them DX) lenses will fuel continuing manufacture of smaller cameras for amateurs and enthusiasts. The D3 and its successors will have far more features including standard wireless connection and lighting (flash) control. The D300 may be the first of the last high-end DX dSLRs as FX format SLRs come down in price to less than $2000. Regardless, the future is exciting for camera makers. I hope photographers can keep up.
Summary
The Nikon D300 is a super camera deserving of much of the hype. Its few nits don’t detract from its supreme capability, handling, and image quality. I’ve been happy with the purchase and expect many years of service. This is a no brainer buy for semi-pros and advanced amateurs wanting nearly all the capabilities of Nikon’s top model, the D3. Nikon would be proud if the D300 were a first purchase into the Nikon system.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1600 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Solid Enough for a Professional
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