2 months with the D300

InsuredDisaster · July 26, 2008

I love this camera. I had a D70 for over 4 years and I don't know if it was just old and something was broken or if I just found the meter was somewhat lacking, but I ended up always using spot metering. I almost always use the D300 on matrix metering now. Zooming into the photos is more logical compared to that weird hold the button and rotate the wheel combo (thought I noticed the D80 now uses zoom in/zoom out buttons too) The lack of noise is of course wonderful. But the other thing I really love is the huge buffer of this thing. I almost always leave the camera on Continous Highspeed drive mode (I usually just fire the shutter once in this mode) and when I want to catch whatever action I'm shooting I just fire away in 3 or 4 shot bursts and the thing never pauses. I love the massive feel of this camera. Oh, and the sheer size of the LCD screen is mind boggling after the D70. My D70 actually broke and was sent in for repairs when I bought the D300. After a week away from the D70, I saw it again and thought there was some mistake! No way was that puny little moniter on the D70 mine. I love the vertical grip and the extra battery inside. I never have to worry about running out of battery juice since once the grip battery runs out of juice it automatically switches to the internal battery. My one gripe about the grip is that it doens't come with the door to use the larger EL 4 battery.
I love the AF-On button too. It took me a little while to make the switch, but now I find that I miss it when I'm using the D70. So far, I've taken about 7,300 clicks with it and I love it.

My only problems: The D300/ MB-10 problem where the buttons on the MB-10 don't work. Nikon checked the grip and the camera and the problem has gone away.

The dreaded dead battery syndrome, but that went away with the latest firm ware update.

I'm a bit annoyed that the EN-4 battery cover wasn't included with the battery pack.

I'd like one more customizable button. Of course, I'd probably want another one if they gave me that one so I guess its ok.

And that's honestly it! Its my 2nd DSLR and I figure I've got a body to last another 4+ years!

MrBook2 · July 26, 2008

Thanks for giving us a hands on impression. I upgraded from a D70 to the D200 a while back. I am thinking of stepping up once again to the D300, but to tell the truth, my camera is not really holding me back. The only thing I would really be after is better low light (high ISO) performance. But my wife wants to shoot my D200, so I may upgrade before the end of the year anyway. So that only leaves the D300 vs. D700 debate...

If you don't mind my asking, as a D300 user, what is your impression of the D700? Are you tempted by the D700, or is the D300 plenty of camera for you? If you had it to do over again, right now, would you spend the extra money to move to the D700 with its full frame wonderfulness, or would you stick with the lower price and farther reach (with the crop on long lenses) of the D300?

--Aaron

InsuredDisaster · July 26, 2008

MrBook2 wrote:

Thanks for giving us a hands on impression. I upgraded from a D70 to the D200 a while back. I am thinking of stepping up once again to the D300, but to tell the truth, my camera is not really holding me back. The only thing I would really be after is better low light (high ISO) performance. But my wife wants to shoot my D200, so I may upgrade before the end of the year anyway. So that only leaves the D300 vs. D700 debate...

If you don't mind my asking, as a D300 user, what is your impression of the D700? Are you tempted by the D700, or is the D300 plenty of camera for you? If you had it to do over again, right now, would you spend the extra money to move to the D700 with its full frame wonderfulness, or would you stick with the lower price and farther reach (with the crop on long lenses) of the D300?

--Aaron

The D700 of course is tempting with its really low noise and full frame, and some extra goodies. As you pointed out, you do lose the reach which would take a while to get used to.

But:
I just got the D300 and it works really well.
I would like lower noise at night, but at this point, I feel that I'd be paying 3,000 for that feature, since the D300 does so much else.

So honestly, the D700 offers little temptation at the present time. I just would not be able to justify the cost.

If however my D300 was taken away by theft or completely destroyed, I'd still go with another D300 I think, just because the D700 is almost twice as much.

I will no longer buy DX only glass think but instead will try to buy FX glass and as good as I can get, to ensure that in 2-4 years from now I'll be set for whatever awesomness nikon can dish out.

lightdrunk · July 29, 2008

congrats on the D300
I love my D300. Haven't had a bit of trouble with it and have shot several thousand pictures since acquireing it in May. I traded in the kit lens (18-200) for a Nikkor 85mm f1.8, and I use it and my 17-35 for street shooting.

I find the MB10 grip useful for the extra batteries (I refused to buy the other battery that fit the MB10 -- they should have the same battery for both the body and the extended grip. So I use 8 lithiums and it works out just fine.

I'm curious about the battery problem you mention: could you explain that a bit.

Thanks in advance.

ziggy53 · July 29, 2008

lightdrunk wrote:

I love my D300. ...

LightDrunk, welcome to the Digital Grin.

Thanks for your comments on the Nikon D300.

InsuredDisaster · July 29, 2008

lightdrunk wrote:

I love my D300. Haven't had a bit of trouble with it and have shot several thousand pictures since acquireing it in May. I traded in the kit lens (18-200) for a Nikkor 85mm f1.8, and I use it and my 17-35 for street shooting.

I find the MB10 grip useful for the extra batteries (I refused to buy the other battery that fit the MB10 -- they should have the same battery for both the body and the extended grip. So I use 8 lithiums and it works out just fine.

I'm curious about the battery problem you mention: could you explain that a bit.

Thanks in advance.

I'm confused about your grip. I'm not exactly sure what came with your grip, but you should have 2 "battery cradles" or whatever they are called with your grip: 1 for 8 AA batteries (I'm guessing that's the one you are using now) and 1 for another EN-EL3e battery like the one you have in your camera. That's how I use mine. With the grip loaded with 1 EN EL3e battery and the camera loaded with 1 EN EL3e battery, the camera normally uses the grip battery and only when that dies does the camera switch to the internal battery (you can change this setting with the custom settings.) The odd thing for me though is that the grip can not be used with the optional, high capacity ENl 4 battery without buying a special door first.

The dead battery syndrome is mentioned on the internet a bit. Basically, for some reason the camera indicates a dead battery and refuses to work, even though the battery inside may be fully charged. You have to turn off, and restart the camera to continue taking photos. My camera did this frequently, but once the updated firmware came out I had no further problems with it.

lightdrunk · July 30, 2008

InsuredDisaster wrote:

I'm confused about your grip. I'm not exactly sure what came with your grip, but you should have 2 "battery cradles" or whatever they are called with your grip: 1 for 8 AA batteries (I'm guessing that's the one you are using now) and 1 for another EN-EL3e battery like the one you have in your camera. That's how I use mine. With the grip loaded with 1 EN EL3e battery and the camera loaded with 1 EN EL3e battery, the camera normally uses the grip battery and only when that dies does the camera switch to the internal battery (you can change this setting with the custom settings.) The odd thing for me though is that the grip can not be used with the optional, high capacity ENl 4 battery without buying a special door first.

The dead battery syndrome is mentioned on the internet a bit. Basically, for some reason the camera indicates a dead battery and refuses to work, even though the battery inside may be fully charged. You have to turn off, and restart the camera to continue taking photos. My camera did this frequently, but once the updated firmware came out I had no further problems with it.

Thanks for the info. I guess I was not clear: I prefer the 8 battery cradle to the second nikon battery. It requires a different charger, therefore more $. Bad move on Nikon's part.

InsuredDisaster · July 30, 2008

lightdrunk wrote:

Thanks for the info. I guess I was not clear: I prefer the 8 battery cradle to the second nikon battery. It requires a different charger, therefore more $. Bad move on Nikon's part.

Yes, I suppose that I also am annoyed to find that Nikon's charger doesn't charge all batteries but for me, not including that door is the biggest annoyance. Of course, they only give the door to those who really want it, and they get to charge more, but its annoying.

I'm not sure how much I'll end up paying all together, but I'm seriously thinking of upgrading to the EN-EL4 battery. Granted I could use the AA batteries, but there's a little green monster in me that has a hard time throwing batteries away. I'd go rechargeble AA's, but for the life of me I can't get them to charge in China, even with the charger I bought in China.

I'm surprised that you can't get the 8FPS from having 2 EN-EL3e batteries in the camera. I'm not an engineer, but I figure it can't be too hard to either give you the option to run the batteries 1 at a time, or run them both together for an extra boost to 8FPS. Go figure.
Sometimes, I miss having those extra 2 FPS.

InsuredDisaster · July 30, 2008

MrBook2 wrote:

If you don't mind my asking, as a D300 user, what is your impression of the D700? Are you tempted by the D700, or is the D300 plenty of camera for you? If you had it to do over again, right now, would you spend the extra money to move to the D700 with its full frame wonderfulness, or would you stick with the lower price and farther reach (with the crop on long lenses) of the D300?

I answered it above, but after thinking about it for a couple of days. . .

For me, the D300 represents the maximum money I could spend on a camera for my uses. Same as the D70 when I bought it. Once you start getting into costs above 2 grand, for me I feel that unless you are a pro or making a lot of money from your photography, I'd be wasting my money. I'd like to make some money with this camera (I did make some money with the D70 in the past) but I feel its the best bargain for serious camera.

I knew the my D70 was aging and I had to override nearly everything much of the time, especially when using flash. I looked at the options: The D80 was the successor to the D70/D70s but I could see very little on paper that would be an improvement over my D70. Some specs seemed a step backwards IMO. The D40/x and D60 were probably nice, but again, they were a step down. I knew I wanted a step up.

For the D700 though, I see very little on paper. Better viewfinder, the FX sensor (which would translate to lower noise) and a few other, fairly trivial things. Things seemed too close to the D300 to justify the incredible cost increase. For me, if I did consider the D700, I'd jump right up to the D3. The faster focusing and FPS would be the features I'd want.

The other thing holding me back from going to FX is that many of my lenses are DX only, though the D700 is a driving force to avoid DX lenses whereever possible now. I'm paying a premium for pro level Nikkon lenses, as I feel that they'll be just as good in 2-4 years from now as they are now. My budget Sigma lenses from 4 years ago are appallingly soft. I'm not sure if they started that way, or if they wore out. But compared to the Nikon lenses, the old sigmas are noticably crappy. So in a few years, I'll have the lenses that I feel will take advantage of the FX format, and they'lll hopefully still be fully functional.

Finally, I think that in 2 years or so, they'll have the D4 or whatever it is that replaces the D3/300/700 generation. It will probably reprent the best features of all three, plus improvements. Its possible that at that time I'll upgrade again, but only if the camera that falls roughly in the D300's price range shows a complete upgrade from the D300. Being that I just jumped from the D70 to the D300 (different class entirely, as well as being several years apart, I might have a hard time finding such an affordable jump again in only 2 years.)

So for now, and the forseeable future, the D300 will be the camera that I stick with.

MrBook2 · July 30, 2008

Good thoughts. Thank you for your feedback. I have thought long and hard about what Nikon was thinking when it came to having the D300, D700 and D3 lineup. I have come to the conclusion that Nikon isn't targeting folks like you and me, but that the D700 is really meant for pros who don't need the speed of the D3. Supposedly Nikon was selling the D3 like hotcakes, but I suspect they might have a slightly better margin with the D700. Sure it is cheaper (so you might assume that they made more money with the D3) but I suspect that they never meant to make a lot of profit margin on the D3. It just wasn't supposed to be a mass market camera, it was meant for high speed pro shooters. They could make something in a much smaller body that would have a broader appeal and sell them by the truckload. The D300 could take its rightful place as a replacement for the D200 in the line up, and perhaps Nikon could tempt more Canon folks to jump ship. After all, if you like the ergonomics of Nikon (and boy do I!) you can surely find something to fit your needs in the 300-700-3 lineup. And if they can get folks to jump ship *before* Canon announces their replacement for the 5D, maybe they will stay with Nikon.

Just my 2 cents. This is all rampant speculation. All I know is I would be happy to have a D700, but I am unlikely to come up with that kind of extra scratch anytime soon. I just don't *need* full frame enough to justify the cost. Now the D300... That might be another story.

--Aaron

dadwtwins · July 31, 2008

InsuredDisaster wrote:

Yes, I suppose that I also am annoyed to find that Nikon's charger doesn't charge all batteries but for me, not including that door is the biggest annoyance. Of course, they only give the door to those who really want it, and they get to charge more, but its annoying.

I'm not sure how much I'll end up paying all together, but I'm seriously thinking of upgrading to the EN-EL4 battery. Granted I could use the AA batteries, but there's a little green monster in me that has a hard time throwing batteries away. I'd go rechargeble AA's, but for the life of me I can't get them to charge in China, even with the charger I bought in China.

I'm surprised that you can't get the 8FPS from having 2 EN-EL3e batteries in the camera. I'm not an engineer, but I figure it can't be too hard to either give you the option to run the batteries 1 at a time, or run them both together for an extra boost to 8FPS. Go figure.
Sometimes, I miss having those extra 2 FPS.

It took me a lot of digging to figure out the D300 battery dilemma. First let me say that Nikon sucks when they want you to buy a special little door for the EL4 and pay an arm and leg for the battery charger to charge up the EL4. Ok, enough whining on my part.

The D300 only uses one battery at a time. That is why you have the option on which battery you want to drain first. For some crazy reason, they did not wire the MB10 to take advantage of having two batteries running in parallel. Instead, they are piggy backed in series

so you can only use one at a time

. This is why you need the big EL4 battery or the AA batteries to achieve the faster FPS.

With that said, the D300 can shoot all day with the EL4 battery and fill up a 8 gig card with no problems. Still annoys the heck out of me that you end up spending an extra $240 for the MB-D10 handle, $35 for the stupid little door for the EN-EL4A, $110 for the EN-EL4A battery and a whooping $120 for the EN-EL4A charger. That is a total of $505 plus tax and shipping for a couple frames a sec more and a couple of hours more battery power.

Is it worth it

. up to you

InsuredDisaster · August 27, 2008

Well, after some time I decided not to get the battery/charger set up. You had a good point about the AA batteries so I now keep the second cradle loaded up with those. If I was doing something that 8FPS might benefit, I'll just use the AA batteries. Since I don't use them that much, I figure I'll save my money and spend it on lenses or an old film camera or something.

I do like the handling of the grip, especially as I use the AF-ON button for focusing. I also like the grip for those secret shots as I can trip the shutter using the secret, hidden shutter button. Of course, the irony is that when you want to be subtle, you have this huge battery grip on.

That being said I do like to strip the camera down to minimal size at times. I painted over the Nikon and D300 to stop scaring people away when I bring up the camera. I also grew tired of sales people whispering "D san buy" (D300 in Chinese) whenever they saw it. For my lenses, I like to use the Nikon 35mm F2. Its small and fast.

I tried out the built in time lapse timer recently. Very nice but my video skills are a bit lacking, and I'm a bit reluctant to try too many time lapse videos as I'm afraid of burning up the shutter with thousands of photos.

What I did find this feature nice for is actually self portraits. Since the D300 has no cheap way to trigger the shutter more than once without a long cord, I'll set the intervolmeter to give me a moment, then start firing off a couple of dozen shots. I can assume poses, move props (or blow bubbles in one picture) while the camera is firing away. This allows you to concentrate on whatever it is you are doing and not actually pressing the button. If you aren't actually doing time lapse recordings, I think this is an truly wonderful feature.

Another feature I find to be great is the ability to name the files in camera. On my D70, I can't get rid of the DSC__***** file prefix. So when it rolled over, I have to use Lightroom to rename files when loading. However with the D300, I just set the prefix for 300 to diferentiate it from the D70's shots, and after the counter rolled over 10,000 shots, I renamed the prefix "301" in about 10 seconds and now I don't have to think twice when I load the photos onto my computer. Again though, I may be a bit mistaken with the D70, but I just can't get it to rename the files so they show up renamed in Lightroom (without remembering to rename them with Lightroom.)

I do have a couple of complaints though.

AUTO ISO: Great, at times. However, when you switch the camera to manual, I wish it would disable the auto ISO. Otherwise, the camera will bump up the iso to maintain exposure levels. So its fighting you. I really wish there was a way I could disable Auto ISo with a quick button push. But I think that part of the problem is the way I use the camera. If I could take advantage of the EL lock, I'd not have to jump to manual all the time. It would be great if you could hit the ISO button, and rotate the front command dial to turn on or off auto ISO.

Menu complexity. On some menus, like the above mentioned intervolmeter, you have to change many settings one at a time. But forget to hit the OK button, and none of your changes are set. And I always seem to forget once before I remember. Sure, you can will yourself to fix this problem, but. . .

I've still not quite figured out the Active D-Lighting. I'm under the impression that its supposed to help with scenes with potential to blow highlights. But after carefully adjusting things to avoid blowing the sky, I've tried the Active D lighting, and blown the sky. Either I'm confused of its use, or its more trouble than its worth. I'm guessing I just don't know how to use it.

Anyway, if anyone knows solutions to my annoyances, let me know. Still loving this camera after 15,000 shots.

2 months with the D300

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