Nikon D300 12 megapixel dslr

The D300 has taken the place of my old D200 as the finest SLR I've ever used. It's very much like the D200 in nearly every way -- size, shape, weight, buttons -- but with a choice set of features bumped up to the next level. (One big benefit is that, unlike moving from the D70 to the D200, there's almost no learning curve.)

Is it worth the upgrade price? For me, yes, for several reasons.

The images coming out of D300 seem to my eye to have better white balance, more natural contrast, and improved noise at higher ISOs, about a one-stop improvement. I'm also pleased with the new Active D-Lighting, which keeps the highlights from blowing out. And by some weird miracle, the D300 eliminates chromatic aberration from my lenses (the kind of flaw that drives me nuts in big prints); that's actually a huge benefit that's getting little or no press.

But probably the most important change for my purposes is the camera's improved auto-focus. The D300 rarely struggles to lock focus, even in dim settings with less-than-ideal subjects, a big improvement over the D200, which was frustrating at times. Don't get me wrong -- the D200 was good, and the D300 still occasionally struggles. But for the most part I can take it for granted that the D300 is going to lock onto whatever I'm shooting.

[Aside: I may have discovered a cure for my Nikon dSLRs' difficulty focusing my super-fast lenses. Both my D200 and D300 have been hit and miss correctly finding focus with both of my f/1.4 lenses (the 50mm and the 28mm), but that's been at my former default settings of Single Point AF and Single Server AF. For other reasons, I've started to use the D300's Dynamic Area Autofocus and Continuous Server AF as my walk-around default. An unexpected benefit is that the camera now does an excellent job locking onto focus with these two fast lenses.]

There are smaller refinements I appreciate, too. The little screw-on caps are now replaced by plugs that stay attached. I really love the snappy 6 frames per second -- just a tad snappier than the D200, and much snappier than my D80. The 3" LCD on the rear has very high pixel density; it's beautiful, but I took it for granted almost immediately. I do like the info screen that can be popped up on the rear LCD, especially since the top LCD is impossible to see on a high tripod. Fifty-one focus points? I'm all over that -- using a tripod, I can set the focus on a portrait subject's face even way out of the center of the frame. Better battery life? Yes, much better.

Less interesting to me is the new Live View mode, which lets you see the scene through the lens on the rear LCD. I can't imagine finding it useful. I've also had little problem with dust on the sensor (a blower bulb fixes all my dust), so the sensor shake doesn't impress me. And I'm not expecting any major wow factor now that I'm shooting 12 megapixels rather than 10. While that sounds like a 20% jump, we're really talking about printing 1.3 inches wider at 300 dpi. (Of course I often print at 180 dpi, so right out of the camera I've got an image almost 18 x 24 inches with no resampling.)

Disappointments? Nothing serious. I use the settings banks, but I still wish I could lock them, I wish there was a single settings bank rather than two, and I wish there was a button to switch banks rather than a series of menu choices. I check highlights on most of my shots, but I can no longer flip back and forth between an unobstructed image and a highlights display (update: this turns out to be a nonissue since I discovered I can display flashing highlights on the histogram screen, just a button press away). I also love those function buttons (three now, including the AE-L / AF-L button), but unfortunately, Nikon doesn't let me assign some of my favorite functions, including D-Lighting and settings banks.

And the lack of 100 ISO is a little disconcerting. The D300 can be set to some sort of artificial 100 ISO, called L 1.0, but Nikon says little about it. Thom Hogan believes that I'll see more highlights blowing out at ISOs below 200, and indeed, side by side, the L 1.0 image looks a little more contrasty. But meanwhile, in my first quick tests, I can clearly see reduced luminance noise in the shadows compared with ISO 200, so I'm not going to hesitate to use it in low-contrast situations.

The move from the D70 to the D200 was a huge leap, from the D100 to the D200 was a huge leap, but from the D200 to the D300? It's basically an upgrade. A worthwhile upgrade for my needs, but an upgrade nonetheless.

As of the beginning of August 2006, I've been testing and using the Nikon D80 (thanks to some work I did for a certain camera manufacturer), and even though I prefer the D200, I'm finding that the D80 will make a perfect second camera: most of the time, it'll be available for the rest of my family when we go out shooting together, but it'll also make a good second body when I need to shoot with two lenses and I don't have time to swap (think Mermaid Parade). Finally, it's reassuring to have a second Nikon dSLR on hand if I ever need to ship the D200 in for tuneup or repair (though that alone is, of course, a poor reason to spend $1000).

I just dropped a lot of money on the D200, and I'm finding the D80 alarmingly similar in many respects: same 10.2 megapixel sensor, same 11 autofocus points, both take ISO down to 100, both include a function button that can be configured by the user. In fact, the D80 has some features I wouldn't expect in anything but a fairly high-end camera, such as mirror-up shooting mode (what Nikon calls "Exposure Delay Mode"), for absolutely rock-solid shooting on a tripod. In fact, the D80 has two nice advantages: it's much smaller and lighter (20 ounces vs. 29 for the D200), and I like the tiny, wireless ml-l3 remote shutter release (about $20) as opposed to the D200's wired remote.

But for my use, the D200 has important advantages: the D200 is weather sealed; it shoots at 5 frames per second and -- more important -- its buffer will take 22 RAW shots before slowing down vs. the D80's 6; the D200 will auto-bracket as many as 9 exposures vs. the D80's 3; the D200 allows multiple saved banks of settings; plus lots of minor advantages that I appreciate (one example: I can set the center-press of the rocker switch to set the focus point to the center). In general, the D200 is much more configurable in small but handy ways.

Coming from the other direction, the D80 -- like the D200 -- solves many of the frustrations I felt with the D70. I like the additional auto-focus points; I really like larger 2.5" LCD screen and the ability to zoom in really tight to check focus; I like the higher magnification of the viewfinder; I like having 10 megapixels rather than 6, mainly because I can crop more freely. One frustration picked up from the D70 -- the way I carry a camera, I accidentally bump the exposure-settings dial and find myself in Manual or a scene mode. Luckily, there's no such dial on the D200.

One of the big changes in the D80 is the addition of a whole set of in-camera editing options: you can shoot black and white (while keeping a color version of the image), there's red-eye correction and in-camera cropping, and lots more, as well as a built-in slideshow with smooth fade out and fade in if you want to connect your D80 to a TV. But honestly, I have no use for those features (nor do I need any of the Scene Modes, which pre-set the camera for various shooting conditions).

Update: My D200 and D80 sit side by side in my equipment closet. When I head out the door, I grab a camera. I love the D200 and, for critical work, that's the one that goes with me, for all the reasons I stated above. But when I'm just headed out to a dentist appointment or to pick up the kids at school, which one do I grab? The one that's about 1/3 lighter.

Images from the D80's kit lens, the Nikon 18mm - 135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX (no VR), look very sharp to my eye at most focal lengths, but there is considerable barrel distortion at the wide 18mm end, and noticeable pincushioning at the telephoto end. I'm also seeing considerable chromatic aberration in high-contrast situations. [The manual focus ring loses one of the nice features of the better Nikon lenses. -- Never mind -- my mistake.] The lens keeps the handy ability to manually focus even while in autofocus mode. 18-135mm is a handy range, and lens will eventually retail alone for a reasonable $400, but I recommend saving your pennies for the well-regarded 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 DX VR, a bargain at less than $800. Though it's not as fast as my beloved 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, and not quite as sharp, it's a terrific lens.

speedlight sb-600 flash for the D70, D200, D2H, D2X etc.
this lightweight flash was designed specifically for the d70 and takes advantage of all kinds of advanced TTL features of nikon digital cameras. it does a great job -- though it's only rated at gn 98, it did an awesome job bouncing off a black ceiling and walls at my son's last gig. roughly $250, it's still hard to find in the u.s.

I've got a new favorite walk-around lens.

17-55mm isn't an amazingly wide range -- I like ultrawide (like my 12-24mm better) and 55mm is barely telephoto on my D200. But f/2.8 is just fast enough to make a big difference, especially since I often want the shallowest depth of field possible. And that 17-55mm range does give me a decent wide angle at one end, and good portrait focal length at the other.

And it's very sharp -- in fact, in my tests, it was the sharpest of my zoom lenses, even wide open at f/2.8 (beating out my 12-24 and, not surprisingly, my 18-200mm).

Drawbacks? Three. First, it's expensive at about $1200 (I bought mine used). Second, it's heavy, very heavy at 1 pound, 14 oz (making my D80 + 17-55mm combination a hefty 3 and a half pounds).

Finally, it's got more distortion than I like, especially at this price and limited focal length range. It's got some barreling at the wide end and pincushion at the long end. The good news is the distortion is not a complicated "mustache" type that's hard to correct. I can fix it quickly in Photoshop.

One of the really annoying aspects of Nikon's very popular 18-200mm VR lens (reviewed below) is that the end of the lens projects way out of the lens body when it's at the 200mm end, shooting the lens and the attached hood way out there -- it goes from about 4" to about 6 1/2". This 17-55 also extends, but only about an inch, and the hood is attached to the main body of the lens, so if you leave the hood on, you can't even see the extension.

So I deal with the slight distortion and the weight, and in return I get very sharp, very fast focusing, and fast f/2.8 throughout its range.

Sigma

I just love shallow depth of field, and I've long been attracted to superfast lenses. The trouble is, Nikon hasn't updated its f/1.4 lenses in quite a while (as of May 2007). Neither the 50mm nor the 85mm are built with the quick and quiet AF-S autofocus. In addition, on today's digital Nikon SLR's, they're equivalent to focal lengths of roughly 75mm and 130mm, and I've always been a wide-angle guy.

Which is why I've been eager to pick up the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 (roughly equivalent to a 45mm "normal" lens on a film SLR). The Sigma has been hard to find for months, but I found one used on the Nikonians.org classifieds, and I'm very happy with it.

First things first -- all the way open at f/1.4 the Sigma is a bit soft. This is a lens I won't pull out for critical applications like the extreme detail in my Workspace series (which I print at 20" x 30"). But this lens is perfect for more forgiving subjects like portraits, when I'm after extremely shallow depth of field. Or for very low light/low noise situations.

I tested the Sigma against my best lens, the Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8, shooting fine detail from a tripod, and I was surprised to discover that, at their best aperture of f/8, the two lenses are equally sharp at the center of the image. It's the corners that separate the good from the great, and the corners are definitely soft in the Sigma, with more chromatic aberration as well.

Open the Sigma all the way to f/1.4 and even the center is slightly soft, and the corners are worse. But the beauty of extremely shallow depth of field more than makes up for any softness, and I've taken to occasionally using it as my basic walk-around lens. (It's perfect for the subway with its dim lighting and constant motion. I can shoot at 1/60 sec at ISO 200.)

It's also a great street lens because I can open it up in aperture priority mode and let the shutter speed bump way up to freeze action. On a cloudy day I find that ISO 100, f/1.4 can give me 1/500 sec. on the open sidewalk. The downside, of course, is that wide open for shallow depth of field, it's easy to exceed the fastest shutter speed. I just picked up a filter step-up ring for my neutral density filter that should help matters.

Now I'm no prime-lens fanatic. I love my zooms -- the best of them are sharp and pretty fast. But the only way I'm gonna get that intensely shallow depth of field is at f/1.4, and the Sigma 30mm suits me just fine.

When I spent a week in Mexico last Spring, I took my my D200 and only the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens, because my favorite walkaround lens, the 17-55mm f/2.8 was simply too heavy and unwieldy to haul all day long through restaurants, boats, and streets. But the vacation proved to me that the 30mm's field of view was simply too restricting for the way I shoot. On the DX-sensor D200, it had the field of view of roughly a 45mm lens, and I'm more of a wide-angle kinda guy.

So I recently picked up a used Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 AF-D, and I think this is the lens I should have taken to Mexico. Even on the DX-sensor D300, it's a nice wide 30mm equivalent and much more suited to what I like to shoot. And at f/2.8, it's fast enough for most low-light situations (and don't forget, this D300 gives me about an additional stop in faster ISO over the D200) and offers a nice shallow depth of field, too.

In my quasi-scientific tests, this thing is sharp. Tested against my favorite and sharpest lens, the Nikon 17-55mm DX f/2.8, the zoom actually has a very slight edge in center sharpness when they're both wide open. But in the corners the 20mm is way ahead, both sharper and with much less chromatic aberration.

At most other apertures, the 20mm beat the 17-55mm by a small margin, nothing that would be visible in normal prints, but sharper all the same. The 20mm also beat the 17-55mm in contrast, though only barely.

But really, I didn't buy the 20mm for its slight edge in sharpness or contrast. When weight and size are not a consideration, or when I really need the versatility of a zoom, I'll carry the 17-55mm. But unfortunately, weight sometimes is a factor. In addition, the 17-55mm often feels like it's swinging way out there in traffic, especially with that enormous hood. The 20mm weighs less than 10 ounces, compared to the 17-55mm's one pound, eleven ounces, and it only projects about 2 inches from the camera, compared to the 17-55's 5 inches (without hoods).

So I know I'll be popping on this little 20mm for more than vacations -- I think it'll be the lens to grab when I'm just headed out to a restaurant or going on a local errand. Fast, light, and wide.

Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G DX VR

But several factors make me leave this lens home more often than not. First, it suffers from zoom creep -- that is, when my camera is hanging at my side, gravity draws out the lens a full 2 1/2 inches, from the 18mm end to fully zoomed. Extended, the lens is almost 6 1/2 long, and really swings around. (See Ken Rockwell's review for a discussion and image of this.)

And that brings up my second complaint -- this lens sticks way way out when you zoom it toward its telephoto end. To me, that shouts Cheap Lens.

And third, it's nice to have VR, but that doesn't help me achieve the nice, shallow depth of field that I love and can get with an f/2.8 or faster lens.

Other annoyances: it adds a little too much distortion on either side of 20 to 24mm, a bit of wave distortion at the wide end that isn't simple to correct in photoshop, and some pincushioning at the tele end. Also, though this lens is acceptably sharp, for really critical work, it doesn't compare to my 17-55mm f/2.8.

So though this sounds like an ideal all-in-one lens for travel and day trips, most of the time I end up sacrificing weight and zoom and take my 17-55mm f/2.8 DX instead, reviewed above.

Set aside for a moment the question of the Vibration Reduction feature of the Nikkor 70-200 VR. Even with the VR turned off, this is, by far, the sharpest, clearest lens I've ever used, bar none. You want proof? Here's an uncropped image I took down in Dumbo one afternoon, shot at the wider end of the zoom's range, 95mm, at f/11 and 1/125 sec, ISO 200 on my D70. Now look way down at the bottom of the image, where you can see a cyclist loading a bike into the back seat of a car. Now consider this: in the original image, blown up on my monitor, I can count the spokes on the back wheel of that bike. And that was with VR turned off.

VR has its detractors, but I'm very happy with the feature -- I could never have shot my "amnh" series without it. For that project, I was mostly shooting at the 70 to 110mm end at ISO 200 on the D70 in that dark museum. This image for example, was taken at 1/20 sec with the lens at 110mm. That's more than two stops slower than you'd normally want to shoot at that focal length. But it's sharp as a tack. Blown up to 13 x 19", you can see every hair on that man's arms.

More: The "bokeh," the look of the out-of-focus rendering, is beautiful. The autofocus is fast, accurate and silent (though the VR makes a quiet clicking sound).

Drawbacks: expensive at about $1700, the lens is heavy at 3 lbs and it can't focus closer than about five feet. (See also Thom Hogan's review.)

Buy it here.