How do you like your D300 compared to the D200?

T

Tuolumne

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For those of you who have used both, how do you like the D300 compared to the D200? Is it worth the upgrade? I can easily see the advantages of a D3 over the D200, but the D300 benefits seem more elusive to me.

Thanks,
/T
 
I've owned the D200 and now have a D300. Faster AF, maybe 1.5-2 stops better noise control, the grip, 8FPS, and the liveview LCD. I shoot alot of sports and some of it indoors ( volleyball and basketball ), and the iamges at 3200ISO are way better than the D200. AWB in most situations seems better too--but I shoot raw for indoor sports just because of the cycling lights.
 
Larger LCD is great. Live View is great. Higher ISO is great. Still trying to figure out all the autofocus options.

Well worth the upgrade, at least for me.
 
Damn, I knew I shouldn't have read this thread .... I have a D200 but have been secretly lusting after a D300. I shoot almost exclusively with MF lenses, and don't really need the high fps rate or high ISO performance. Is there anything else I'm missing out on ???
 
jonmanjiro said:
Damn, I knew I shouldn't have read this thread .... I have a D200 but have been secretly lusting after a D300. I shoot almost exclusively with MF lenses, and don't really need the high fps rate or high ISO performance. Is there anything else I'm missing out on ???
Click to expand...

I was in a similar position to you except I was shooting a lot of AIS lenses on a D40 with no built-in metering support. The final thing that pushed me to upgrade was metering support. I considered going to a used D200, but ultimately went for the D300, so perhaps my POV may be topical to you.

High ISO performance definitely was one factor that drove my decision of D300 over D200, but others were the larger and clearer LCD and the promise that active D-Lighting would bring improved management of highlights and shadows.

I thought the list would be longer, but eliminating any bennies of the AF system, I'm running short. Still, I'm not sorry. Haven't had a lot of time with the new rig yet, but I can say that active D-Lighting does seem to be holding up its promises. I'm getting less highlight burnout in contrasty scenes without the need to resort to deliberate underexposure.
 
I know I could read the blurbs, but what is Active-D lighting? I shoot alot of high contrast scenes (theatrical & stage) and always have to underexpose to keep from bolwing out strong highlights created by stage lighting.

/T
 
Active D-Lighting is an in camera shadows & highlight recovery. The camera slightly under exposes to preserve the highlights and then boosts the shadow information.
 
Ahhh don’t diss Nikonians for the most part they are a good bunch of people.
I have the D300 and it meters very nicely with manual lenses, I use a 50 1.4 Zeiss and a 35/2 Zeiss and it works great.
I would still recommend a Katzeye Screen to make life easier focusing, even though the green indicator light helps, it's not dead on.
 
I acquired a D200 last summer and even though the D300 has some improvements, the D200 itself is an excellent DSLR and I haven't felt the need to upgrade. I'll bide my time until I see what the D400 offers 🙂

Gene
 
Tuolumne said:
I know I could read the blurbs, but what is Active-D lighting? I shoot alot of high contrast scenes (theatrical & stage) and always have to underexpose to keep from bolwing out strong highlights created by stage lighting.

/T
Click to expand...

I haven't shot much with stage lighting, but I know what you mean in a general sense. It's not too great an exagerration to say blown highlights make me cry.

Active D-Lighting appears to be an automated version of doing a little underexposure to preserve highlight detail and then quickly doing some contrast optimizing so the midtones look natural and bringing shadow detail up. I haven't had my D300 for long, but my limited shooting is already showing what I feel is better highlight control with Active D-Lighting on.

This is my first good shot from my D300 with Active D-Lighting set to "normal."

2295136808_3f8e440bec.jpg


It was late afternoon sunlight and the horse is white. I converted to B&W and applied red filteration in CS3, but otherwise the tonal range is as the camera produced set to Program mode with no exposure compensation. My D40 would have probably needed -0.7 comp and some brightening in post.
 
Does anyone have any idea how much Active-D extends the dynamic range of the D300? Looks very promising. My red channel always blows out with bright highlights and Ken Rockwell describes how this is especially well controlled with the D300/D3.

/T
 
just got mine and I find some small and other quite significant improvements in almost everything over the D200, except for overall workmanship. This may be subjective, but the D200 just feels ever so slightly more solid.

I especially like that the outermost focusing point on the D300 is closer to the edge of the frame. This is very useful.
 
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