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The Nature, Wildlife and Pet Photography Forum Presents:
The D300 Review by Roman Johnston

Edited by James Morrissey

With the D3 starting a new Full Frame (FX) line of cameras for Nikon, and half of my lenses being of a DX flavor, I opted to sell my D2X, and get Nikon's newest flagship DX camera the D300. This ended up being a very easy move, as I was also able to sell it early enough in the game to have a bit left over to get a nice ballhead.

Like the D200, the camera is heavy and has a strong build, acting much like a smaller brother to the pro lineup. So far, the weather seals have held up just like my D2X. We have had plenty of rain here in Oregon, and we have had several opportunities to test the camera's durability to weather. I have been behind some serious waterfalls getting drenched while taking pictures.

In function, it is a lot like using the D2X, minus all of the extra weight and size. A new feature for the 12.3MP sensor is a dust cleaning system. In the past, I have rarely needed to deal with dust. I having cleaned all my cameras a total of about 4 times so far (that’s my D70, my D2H, and my D2X) and we're only talking about blowing out the dust. I have never had to use a wet solution to take care of any problems as of yet (let me find some wood to knock on!). The dust cleaning system has 2 modes. The first mode is activated every time the camera starts up. The second mode is operated through a menu to force cleaning only when desired. I generally opt for the 2nd option to keep battery life up a tad and because I am usually very careful with lens changes.

The D300's ability to handle high ISOs has been a very hot topic in light of it’s big brothers (the D3) stellar performance in that arena. One of the things that I noticed immediately is that I would have no problem using the camera to cover a wedding (something I rarely do). The camera is very usable at ISO 1600 with solid detail retention. I believe that it is akin to about ISO 500 on my D2X. It is really that good. This is in light of having the same pixel density as the D2X. This is good news for people with long lenses looking to maximize shutter speed and still get a reasonably blur free shot. Wildlife is not my forte, so I will leave reporting on this for more qualified individuals.

I believe that the cost of the high ISO performance is some minute grain at low ISOs. This has also been noticed anecdotally by others on-line as well. Raw files, in my experience, with no noise reduction show a mild grain. Personally, I like the look and do not find it distracting on the screen. It doesn’t show up on prints at all, which to me is where the rubber meets the road. This grain only shows up in certain settings that leverage Active D-lighting. With regular settings, or when Dynamic Range is not an issue, going to ISO 100 (from it's base of ISO 200) provides very nice clean shots for those worried about even minute noise.

The Auto ISO feature is well thought out. You simply set your desired ISO, and an ISO cap. If you have your unit in shutter speed priority mode, it will bounce around the ISO to match your desired shutter speed while keeping it at the lowest possible (or your chosen ISO) until it needs to go up to compensate.

If you have noticed chromatic aberration (CA) with wider lenses in the past on your DX cameras, for some reason, I have noticed a bit less than from the D2X. It hasn’t disappeared mind you, but the performance gain is there and noticeable on large prints. From the introduction I attended when Nikon introduced these cameras (the D3/D300), I learned that they incorporated new microlenses on the sensor that are 'edge to edge' with no gaps, which was reported to help improve CA.

One of the new and exciting features of the D300 is the ability to photograph in 14 bit captures when shooting in RAW mode (.jpg files are inherently 8 bit files, so it is not offered in this format). Many ask if you will see a difference with 14 bit vs. 12 bit files. From reliable sources that I have communicated with who know how to test this, there have been reports of about ½ a stop of additional dynamic range when using the D300 at it's default ISO of 200. This echoes my own experience with the camera working between 14 and 12 bit files. I will be using 14 bit exclusively just to leverage the overhead in post processing. Remember that your dynamic range always suffers when you stray from base ISO. In the extreme highlights, as well as the extreme shadows, you will see some mild differences. The real benefit comes when you edit the files. The new feature of shooting in 14 bit mode should give you a benefit when you push the envelope.

To explain about 14 bit mode, it’s a lot like having a 6 color box of crayons, a 24 box, or a 64 box. The 64 color box will give you more colors between light green and dark green. So when you edit your files, if you increase that range of colors, they will end up with smoother transitions. This is editing overhead and what is afforded by each climb, for example, from 8 bit to 12 and 14 bit to (ultimately) 16 bit. 16 bit files are being offered in some medium format backs currently. Another analogy of 14 bit vs 12 bit files is to think of the bit range of the camera as being like a ladder. The 14 bit and 12 bit files all share the same ladder height in terms of dynamic range. The difference is that the 14 bit ladder offers additional rungs across the same span.

The one drawback of shooting the RAW 14 bit files is that in continuous mode, the D300 does slow down considerably. The D300 only shoots at about 2.5 photos per second when shooting 14 bit files. This is down from 6 photos per second in 12 bit mode, and a blistering 8 photos per second with the additional battery pack. As a landscape photographer, this has not affected me much, and I like the additional bit depth of the files.

Speaking of editing, the D300, for a limited time, comes with Capture NX. I resisted learning this new software for quite a while as the software is kind of power hungry. It likes lots of RAM. I have 3 Gigs of RAM, and it actually works quite well. Nothing processes the NEF files like Capture. I have been opening my old D70 and D2X files with it and applying Picture Control and WOW, my old shots have more light and dynamic colors. I really am a convert to Capture NX. Just do yourself a favor and upgrade your RAM to a minimum of 2GB, and give this software a real chance. RAM is cheap these days. If you have a second physical hard drive on your computer, you would also do well to place the cache for Capture NX on that 2nd hard drive. This is standard practice for any large graphics editing program like Photoshop and Capture NX. The new Nikon Capture NX comes free with the camera. Just use the money you saved by not having to purchase it. Here is a link to Nikon Tutorials that should get you up to speed. Click your language of choice and once in, you will have a sub menu for tutorials: www.capturenx.com

Another new feature of the D300 is Active D-lighting. Active D-lighting lightens the shadows and softens the highlights when they are a little too close to being too dark or blown out. Unfortunately, you cannot do this after the fact in software unless you have it turned on in the camera during the initial capture. I typically leave mine set at low and then I can leverage Low, Med, High, or Off later in software. Active D-lighting requires Capture NX to leverage it in RAW mode. I have fiddled with it and it is pretty decent at helping reign in shadows and highlights when detail starts disappearing. Note though that you might want to play with your settings. I noticed on high, actually under exposing by 2/3 or 1 full stop would not allow the highlights to be blown. This is done actively by the software if set on high during the capture. It can be done later after the fact, but you really have to watch your highlights to insure they are not burned out.

One of my FAVORITE features is the new rear LCD screen. The 3 inch LCD boasts 920,000 pixels and basically acts as a small High Definition display. In the past, I have often been quoted saying “Don’t judge exposure or color by your rear screen”. With the D300…I will be saying this no more. Just bring the brightness level down to -1 and make sure your shooting in sRGB. Don't worry about color spaces if you are shooting RAW! Just configure the converter to default to your preferred color space and it will override the sRGB setting. The reason I am suggesting that you shoot in sRGB is that the rear screen is an sRGB device and will not display proper dynamic colors without that color space.

The powerful display is integral to the new Live View mode. Live View offers for the camera to be able to see what the composition will look like on the LCD prior to taking the photo. Things I may not notice in the viewfinder I often find and eliminate from the composition BEFORE I pull the trigger on the shot. Using Tripod mode allows for deadly accurate focus – even though it is slow and methodical. Tripod mode allows you to actually zoom in and insure that focus is dead on which is a boon for manual focus users. The reason why Tripod mode focus is so slow is because it uses a contrast based system. The hand held live view mode uses the normal faster focus method.

This brings me to the topic of Focus. For many, the new 51 point auto-focusing system has been of great interest. Being a landscape photographer, I don’t think I will leverage the new focusing system fully. However, I have continued to hear good things about it. One of the nice things about the D300 (and its big brother the D3) is that focus adjustments can be stored for each lens. Just pop your unit on a tripod, run through the shortest, middle and longest ranges of your lens (assuming you have a zoom), find an average that works and your pictures will be sharp without sending your entire kit in to Nikon to be tuned. I love this feature. Nikon was also smart enough to allow Non CPU lens data to be entered so your EXIF shows information that might be lost.

A final topic is White Balance. Nikon Cameras have been pretty poor from my perspective so far, and have been known to almost always be wearing my ExpoDisc (my photographic bling if you will) whenever I am shooting. I have to say Nikon REALLY improved their white balance feature on both the D300 AND the D3. In the few months of owning my D300, I have only had to use the preset 2 times in some pretty crazy light. Usually auto WB gets pretty darned close.

All these points really add up to a very different shooting experience from every other Nikon camera I have owned. I really think this is the strongest appeal the new D300 has. It offers a familiar physical setup, and one of the best user interface and feature sets I have seen from Nikon to date - a product ending up being more than the sum of its already impressive parts.

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